Florida Physician Noncompetes: How to Read the Clause

The contract arrives as a PDF on a Thursday evening. Twenty-two pages, a base salary on page three, and on page fourteen a paragraph titled “Restrictive Covenant” that decides where your family will be living two years after the job ends. Most of us read page three carefully and page fourteen once. That is backwards.

According to the AMA’s 2024 Physician Practice Benchmark Survey, 42.2 percent of physicians remained in private practice, down from 60.1 percent in 2012, while 34.5 percent worked in hospital-owned practices and 6.5 percent in practices owned by private equity. The employment contract is now the ordinary way a Florida physician enters practice, and the noncompete inside it is the clause with the longest reach.

What Florida Law Actually Says

Florida is one of the most employer-friendly noncompete states in the country, and the reason is written into section 542.335 of the Florida Statutes. The statute tells a court to enforce a restrictive covenant when the employer proves a legitimate business interest, and it supplies the list: trade secrets, confidential business information, substantial relationships with specific patients, patient goodwill tied to a trade name or location, and extraordinary or specialized training.

Three instructions in the same statute matter more than the list. A court “shall not consider any individualized economic or other hardship that might be caused to the person against whom enforcement is sought.” A court “shall not employ any rule of contract construction that requires the court to construe a restrictive covenant narrowly, against the restraint, or against the drafter.” And a violation “creates a presumption of irreparable injury,” which is the finding a hospital needs to obtain an injunction that keeps you out of your own clinic while the case proceeds. The statute also lets the prevailing party recover attorney’s fees.

The one place the statute leans toward the physician is duration. For a former employee, a restraint of six months or less is presumed reasonable and a restraint of more than two years is presumed unreasonable. A court that finds a covenant overbroad is directed to modify it rather than void it, so an unreasonable clause usually becomes a shorter clause, not a free physician.

The Specialty Exception Most Physicians Have Never Read

In 2019 the Legislature added section 542.336, and it has since been upheld in federal court. The text is short. A restrictive covenant with a physician licensed under chapter 458 or 459 “who practices a medical specialty in a county wherein one entity employs or contracts with, either directly or through related or affiliated entities, all physicians who practice such specialty in that county is not supported by a legitimate business interest.” Such covenants are void, and they remain void for three years after a second entity begins offering that specialty in the county.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida upheld the statute in 2019 in 21st Century Oncology, Inc. v. Moody, finding that access to affordable health care is a legitimate state interest. The exception is narrow by design. It reaches the radiation oncologist in a county where one system employs everyone in the specialty, and it does not reach the internist in Hillsborough County who has forty competitors. If you practice a subspecialty in a county with a single dominant employer, this section may already have voided the clause you are worried about.

The CHOICE Act Left Physicians Where They Were

In 2025 Florida enacted the CHOICE Act, chapter 2025-213, which created a second and much harsher noncompete regime for high earners. A “covered noncompete agreement” under the new sections 542.41 through 542.45 can run up to four years, and a court is directed to issue a preliminary injunction against a departing covered employee. The definition of “covered employee” in section 542.43 expressly excludes a health care practitioner as defined in section 456.001.

That exclusion is the whole story for physicians. A hospital cannot use the four-year CHOICE Act covenant against a physician, and we remain under section 542.335, with its two-year presumption and its no-hardship rule. The attempts to go the other way, House Bill 11 and Senate Bill 458 in the 2024 session, would have voided most physician noncompetes outright; Senate Bill 458 cleared two committees unanimously and the session ended without it becoming law.

The Federal Ban Is Gone and the Scrutiny Is Not

Many physicians still believe a federal rule is coming to the rescue. It is not. The Federal Trade Commission’s April 2024 rule banning nearly all noncompetes was set aside by a federal court in Texas in August 2024, and in September 2025 the Commission abandoned its appeal and vacated the rule.

What replaced it is narrower. On September 10, 2025, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent warning letters to large health care employers and staffing companies urging them to review their noncompetes, discontinue the ones that are not reasonably tailored, and notify the affected employees. The same month the agency opened a request for information on the effect of noncompetes in health care. Enforcement now proceeds one employer at a time under the antitrust laws, which may eventually matter to a Florida physician bound by an overbroad clause and will not help anyone who is negotiating this month.

How to Read the Clause Before You Sign

1. Map the geography to real addresses. A radius measured from “any facility of the employer or its affiliates” can cover the entire state once a system with sixty sites is the employer. Ask for the restriction to be tied to the one or two locations where you will actually practice, and ask that sites added after you sign do not count.
2. Negotiate the duration down toward the statutory floor. The statute presumes six months reasonable and more than two years unreasonable. A one-year clause is a common landing point, and the employer knows a court is unlikely to give it more than two.
3. Add the two release conditions. The AMA’s contracting guidance recommends that the covenant not apply if the employer terminates you without cause or if you terminate for cause. The without-cause termination provision should be reciprocal and should carry at least 90 days of notice, because credentialing a new position takes that long.
4. Put a buyout number in the contract. A liquidated buyout, whether a fixed dollar figure or a stated fraction of annual compensation, converts an injunction fight into an arithmetic problem. Without one, the presumption of irreparable injury belongs to the employer.
5. Check section 542.336 against your specialty and county. If one entity employs every physician in your specialty in the county, the covenant may be void regardless of what page fourteen says. None of this constitutes legal advice, so before you sign or before you leave, have a Florida health law attorney read the clause against sections 542.335 and 542.336. Then bring the question to your county medical society, because physicians who compare clauses learn quickly which employers have moved and which have not.

The Bigger Picture

Opinion 11.2.3.1 of the AMA Code of Medical Ethics says that covenants not to compete “restrict competition, can disrupt continuity of care, and may limit access to care,” and it asks physicians not to enter covenants that unreasonably restrict the right to practice. The clause is drafted by the party that employs the lawyers, and it is signed, most of the time, by a physician who has not yet met one. Organized medicine in Florida carried a ban through two Senate committees in 2024 and will carry it again. Until then, the physician who reads page fourteen before page three is the one who keeps the choice of where to practice, and that choice is worth protecting on behalf of the patients who will follow.

For more on Florida practice law, see our coverage of the Florida Patient Brokering Act and percentage marketing deals, Florida NP and PA supervision requirements and Florida’s office surgery suite law. All of our reporting on this subject is collected in our guide to Florida scope of practice and medical regulation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are physician noncompete agreements enforceable in Florida?

Yes, in most cases. Section 542.335 of the Florida Statutes directs courts to enforce a restrictive covenant that protects a legitimate business interest, forbids the court from considering the physician’s personal hardship, and presumes irreparable injury when the covenant is violated. A restraint of more than two years is presumed unreasonable, and a court will usually shorten an overbroad clause rather than void it.

Does Florida’s CHOICE Act apply to physicians?

No. The 2025 CHOICE Act’s definition of “covered employee” in section 542.43 excludes health care practitioners as defined in section 456.001, so physicians cannot be bound by its four-year covered noncompete agreements. Physician covenants remain governed by section 542.335.

When is a physician noncompete void under Florida law?

Section 542.336 voids a restrictive covenant with a physician who practices a medical specialty in a county where one entity, directly or through affiliates, employs or contracts with every physician in that specialty. The covenant stays void for three years after a second entity begins offering the specialty in that county.

Did the FTC ban noncompetes for doctors?

No. The FTC’s 2024 rule was set aside by a federal court, and the Commission vacated it in September 2025. The agency now pursues individual employers under the antitrust laws and sent warning letters to health care employers and staffing companies on September 10, 2025, but there is no federal rule a Florida physician can rely on.

This article is general information for physicians and is not legal advice for any individual contract. Have a Florida health law attorney review your own agreement.

This article was drafted with the assistance of AI writing tools, then reviewed, edited, and approved by Dr. Sean C. Orr, M.D., who holds full editorial responsibility for its content. The header illustration was created with AI image tools.

References

1. Florida Statutes, section 542.335, “Valid restraints of trade or commerce” (2025). flsenate.gov
2. Florida Statutes, section 542.336, “Invalid restrictive covenants” (2025). flsenate.gov
3. Florida Statutes, section 542.43, CHOICE Act definitions, chapter 2025-213 (2025). flsenate.gov
4. Holland & Knight, “New Florida Statute May Void Physician Non-Compete Agreements” (September 2019), discussing 21st Century Oncology, Inc. v. Moody. hklaw.com
5. Holland & Knight, “Florida Legislature Proposes Ban on Physician Noncompete Agreements” (February 2024), on House Bill 11 and Senate Bill 458. hklaw.com
6. The Southron Firm, “Florida Physician Non-Competes After the CHOICE Act” (2026). southronfirm.com
7. Federal Trade Commission, “FTC Chairman Ferguson Issues Noncompete Warning Letters to Healthcare Employers and Staffing Companies” (September 10, 2025). ftc.gov
8. Jenner & Block, “The FTC Drops Ban on Noncompetes But Warns Healthcare Employers” (September 2025). jenner.com
9. McGuireWoods, “FTC Employer-Employee Noncompete Warning Letters: Must-Knows for Healthcare Employers and Staffing Firms” (September 2025). mcguirewoods.com
10. American Medical Association, Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 11.2.3.1, “Restrictive Covenants.” code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org
11. American Medical Association, “Physician contracting: Restrictive covenants, termination clauses.” ama-assn.org
12. American Medical Association, “Smaller share of doctors in private practice than ever before,” 2024 Physician Practice Benchmark Survey. ama-assn.org