Physician non-compete agreements are ubiquitous among physicians in Texas and the United States, with as many as 45% of American physicians bound by the agreements (Robeznieks, 2023). Noncompetes are agreements that are ancillary to or part of an otherwise enforceable agreement between two parties. In healthcare, non-compete agreements impose temporal and geographic restrictions upon physicians, defining when and where they can work after departure from their employer. Texas Business and Commerce Code Section 15.50(b) identifies necessary features of enforceable physician noncompete agreements, requiring that the agreements: 1) do not prevent physicians access to a patient list, 2) allow physicians to have continued access to patient records, 3) provide for a “reasonable” buyout, and 4) do not prohibit a physician from continuing to provide care to a patient with an acute condition. Despite these statutory requirements for physician non-compete agreements, temporal and geographic restrictions may be burdensome and buyout fees may be so egregiously high that, alongside moving costs, physicians may be dissuaded from making career transitions that would allow them to establish new practices to foster innovation and competition or to independently practice in one of 129 counties containing medically underserved areas.
Texas Has the Tools to Protect Health Data. Now We Just Need the Political Will.
Filled with anticipation, a woman in her early 30s downloads a fertility-tracking app. She and her husband are finally ready to start their young family and have a baby. Every morning she logs her cycle, her basal temperature, her symptoms. She grants the app access to her Apple Health data because the onboarding screen says...