This is an interesting subject in medicine, especially with physicians who don't have a patient base, so called capacity physicians - anesthesiology, radiology, emergency medicine, etc.
These people aren't taking patients with them to a new practice. There are no trade secrets to take to another practice.
The biggest impact is not necessarily going to be the hospitals, but in the private equity owned practices that provide services to those hospitals, where the physician works in Big Hospital A, but receives a paycheck from National Provider B.
Some of these private equity physician firms are so big that if you want to leave them, it's difficult to find another job that isn't in proximity of their other locations. Or, a hospital is forced to continue contracting with National Provider B, because none of the physicians currently working in the hospital could move to either the new practice group they want to bring in, or the hospital itself.
There was an instance of this just recently in Colorado, where a national group had the anesthesiology services at all hospitals in a region, such that it created a monopoly.
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/02/26/colorado-usap-settlement-us-anesthesiology-partners-antitrust-monopoly/It went to the state level, and Colorado used anti-trust tactics to break it up. These same tactics were used in Texas by the same group, and has led to a FTC lawsuit (which will be interesting to see the outcome of).
For physicians who DO have a recurring patient base, it's going to require some new ideas to prevent patients leaving with them. Maybe a tiered five year plan where the physician has to pay X amount for each year remaining if they leave. Or something else that isn't a non-compete, but provides some amount of protection to a physician owned clinic who helped that person get started.
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