Departure notices: continuity duties vs the non-solicit

Whose duty this is — set state by state

Whether a departing clinician, the group, or both share a legal duty to notify existing patients is a question each state answers differently through its licensing board rules, professional-conduct code, or case law on patient abandonment — there is no single national rule, and a policy written for one state's board can be flatly wrong applied to another's. Check your own board's continuity-of-care or termination-of-services rule before assuming either side is automatically responsible.

Absent a specific board rule, many groups handle it through the employment contract itself, assigning notice responsibility to whichever party the contract designates — which is why reading that contract's termination and patient-notification clauses matters as much as checking the board rule.

If you practice across state lines via telehealth, the notification question can have more than one answer at once, since a patient in a second state may fall under that state's board rule rather than the one where your group is physically located. Confirm which state's rule actually governs each patient relationship rather than defaulting to the practice's home state for everyone.

The non-solicit clause: what it actually restricts

A non-solicit clause in an employment agreement can restrict the departing clinician from actively reaching out to the group's patients to invite them to a new practice, independent of whatever continuity-of-care duty exists — the two obligations run on separate tracks and don't cancel each other out.

Non-competes and non-solicits for employees are governed mostly by state law in practice, since the FTC's 2024 rule banning most non-competes was set aside by a federal court and remained tied up on appeal as of mid-2026 1Ref 1Federal Trade Commission (2024).Noncompete Rule.That the FTC's 2024 non-compete ban was set aside by a federal court and remained unresolved on appeal, leaving state law as the practical governing framework for non-competes and non-solicits as of mid-2026.. That status is worth re-checking against the current appellate posture rather than assumed settled, since a reversal would change how enforceable a given clause actually is.

A non-solicit binding the clinician doesn't necessarily relieve the group of its own continuity duty, if one applies — the group can still be the one required to tell patients the clinician is leaving, even while the clinician themselves is barred from doing the same outreach directly. Coordinating who says what, and when, between the group and the departing clinician avoids the notice arriving twice, once garbled and once accurate, which confuses patients more than either version alone.

What patients can do regardless of who notifies them

Whatever the group's or the clinician's notice obligation turns out to be, patients keep an independent right to request their own record and have it sent wherever they choose, within 30 days and one 30-day extension, for a reasonable cost-based fee 2Ref 2HHS Office for Civil Rights (2026).Individuals' Right under HIPAA to Access their Health Information.The 30-day (plus one extension) patient access right and cost-based fee, and that psychotherapy notes are excluded, independent of any departure notice.. That right doesn't depend on anyone proactively notifying them first — a patient who hears about the departure secondhand, or notices a canceled appointment, can still exercise it immediately.

Psychotherapy notes are excluded from that access right, which matters if a patient's request during the transition includes them by name — the rest of the chart still moves on request regardless of where things stand between the clinician and the group.

Drafting the notice itself

A notice that actually serves continuity of care states plainly that the clinician is leaving, the effective date, how to reach the departing clinician's new practice if permitted, and how to request records or continue with a different clinician at the group instead. Vague language about a clinician "stepping back" without a concrete date or a records-request path is a common complaint patients raise with licensing boards.

Sending the notice with enough lead time for patients mid-treatment to plan around it — rather than the week of the last session — is a widely observed convention, even in states whose board rule doesn't specify an exact number of days.

A short list of alternative clinicians at the group, or elsewhere, accepting new patients is a practical addition to the notice itself where a continuity duty exists — it converts a notice that only announces a departure into one that actually helps a patient take the next step, which is closer to what the underlying duty is meant to accomplish.

When the group is slow, or won't notify at all

A group that delays notification, or declines to notify patients at all after a clinician leaves, doesn't relieve the departing clinician of whatever their own board rule or contract requires of them individually — it just means the two notices, if both exist, may need to happen on different timelines. Documenting your own good-faith effort to ensure patients were told, even where a non-solicit clause limits what you personally can say to them, is worth keeping for your own file.

A pattern of a group routinely failing to notify departing patients is itself something worth raising with the board directly, separate from your own individual departure, since it can expose both the group and any remaining clinicians to abandonment complaints down the line.

Coordinating with your own departure and new practice

Departure notices sit inside a larger sequence: leaving employment cleanly, then giving whatever notice the continuity duty or contract requires, then — separately and later — the announcement of the new practice once you're actually open. The way out you take from the group and the way patients are told about it are related but not identical questions.

Conflating the two is where non-solicit violations most often happen by accident rather than intent — folding a soft announcement of your new address into what should have been a neutral continuity notice is an easy line to cross without meaning to.

Keeping a written record of exactly what each notice said and when it went out — the group's continuity notice, your own separate announcement once it's actually permitted — gives you something concrete to point to later if a dispute ever arises over who said what to which patients.