JEFFERSON CITY — Legislators are considering changes to Missouri law involving noncompete contracts for physicians, especially those working for nonprofit employers.
House Bill 2979, sponsored by Rep. Bill Hardwick, R-Dixon, would create the Missouri Rural Doctors Act. The bill would set limits on when and how noncompete provisions can be used with physicians employed by health organizations.
The bill would establish a covenant to compete, defined as an agreement where an employee agrees not to compete with their employer after leaving the job. This could include not competing within a certain geographic area or for a specific time, or both.
Rep. George Hruza, R-St. Louis, expressed support for the bill during a hearing last week, citing a personal example. “I think this bill is really important, in my experience,” he said.
“I actually had a physician that I hired, actually was even more than five miles away and he had a noncompete with a hospital and as soon as he opened up he got an injunction legally, and he had to move to Indianapolis to practice for two years before moving back to St. Louis,” Hruza said.
David Lancaster, an osteopathic physician, testified in support of the bill.
“I am living the noncompete as we speak right now. I am not permitted to practice medicine in any capacity. I can’t even volunteer without the permission of the University of Missouri,” he said.
“Patients are not people’s property, they are people,” Lancaster said. “They ended property and owning people over 150 years ago, so we have to change that mindset.”
Jennifer Posen, a senior vice president and chief legal officer at North Kansas City Hospital, testified against the bill.
“This is a narrow subset of health care employers that would be affected by this bill,” she said. “Some of those nonprofit health care employers have the most ethical business practices and do the most good for the community.”
“This bill would not impact for-profit health care. They would not impact national staffing companies that provide physician services,” Posen said. “It would not impact shareholder-driven health care such as HCA, the health care corporation of America.”
Rep. Tara Peters, R-Rolla, posed a question to the bill sponsor.
“Just to play devil’s advocate, what prevents a physician from coming into our rural hospital, working there for maybe a year without having signed a noncompete clause and when they open their own practice, they take all the patients with them?” Peters asked.
“That’s my point, patients should be able to go to whichever doctor they want to,” Hardwick replied. “So the idea that those are your patients and they shouldn’t be able to go anywhere else, that’s a problem.”
