UVa adds non-compete clause

The University of Virginia Medical Center is adding “non-competition” clauses to the employment agreements of its 800 clinical faculty members — a move that one UVa physician criticized as bad for health care in the Charlottesville region.

Under the new policy, clinical faculty involved in primary care — such as pediatrics or family medicine — are prohibited from practicing medicine within a 15-mile radius for one year after leaving employment with UVa.

Clinical faculty who practice in more specialized fields cannot work within 50 miles for a year after leaving UVa.

Peter Jump, a UVa hospital spokesman, said the new policy aims to stop physicians from leaving UVa to set up a nearby practice or to take a job with a competing hospital.

“Physicians come here, we set up their practice, they see our patients and then they leave and many of the patients go with them,” Jump said. “We invest a lot of money, time and effort helping you get your practice established, but then you leave and take your patients with you to the detriment of UVa.”

In 2005, UVa’s entire in-vitro fertilization clinic left the university and moved across town to Martha Jefferson Hospital. Such a move, Jump said, can deprive UVa’s medical students of valuable learning experiences.

UVa’s new policy is not unusual for teaching hospitals. Jump said the university polled 28 similar teaching hospitals and found that 26 had non-compete policies, one did not and one could not respond because it was forbidden by state law.

One physician who has worked at UVa for 20 years, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the hospital’s new policy will reduce health care competition and might lead to some physicians leaving the Charlottesville area for opportunities elsewhere.

“This could restrict access to good doctors,” the physician said. “It could drive doctors out of the community.”

Jump disagreed, saying UVa’s non-competition policy would not reduce competition for health care in the Charlottesville region, which is home to several hospitals and numerous independent medical practices.

“We don’t think it’s going to be detrimental to competition,” Jump said.

Hospitals are allowed to implement non-compete clauses so long as the policy is reasonable in its duration and geographic area, said Robert Mills of the American Medical Association.

“The courts have backed the notion that these restrictive covenants are OK so long as they are not overly broad,” Mills said.

Massachusetts, Delaware and Colorado, however, have all enacted statutes that invalidate physician non-compete clauses in those states.

Medical centers generally add non-compete policies to protect revenue, their patient base and their investment — such as recruiting costs, moving expenses and opportunity costs — in their employees.

It is unclear if Martha Jefferson Hospital has a similar policy. Hospital spokeswoman Jennifer McDaniel would not say, citing confidentiality rules.

“Contracts are confidential,” she said. “That’s between human resources and the employee.”