A 25-Mile Non-Compete and the Practice Locations It Takes Off the Table
Summary
A 25-mile non-compete in a hospital employment contract may take far less territory off the table than its wording suggests, because some states cap or void a clinician covenant outright. Where none does, the contract's own wording is the place to start. Texas caps a physician's covenant at five miles from where they primarily practiced. Pennsylvania voids most new practitioner covenants. California makes a restraint on a lawful profession void to that extent, except as its own chapter provides. Read the statute and the signature date first.
By Gale Editorial · Updated 2026-09-02. Every figure cited to a dated source. How we write.
What a 25-mile clause restricts before any state law touches it
The mileage is the part everyone reads first, and it is not the part that decides most of the map. The radius, the point it is measured from, the activity it forbids and how long it runs after separation all sit in the contract's own words. A state statute may cap or void the whole clause before any of them matter, so read the contract and the statute together.
The anchor is where the argument usually is. A clause measuring from every site a multi-site system operates sweeps a region. One measuring from the single office where the clinician saw patients sweeps one circle, wide at 25 miles but still one circle.
The measuring method is the next sentence to find. Where the clause names no method, the method is not settled, and the activity language is the sentence after that. Some covenants forbid practicing a named specialty inside the circle; others forbid soliciting former patients wherever they live, which does not shrink when you move. The contract may call any of it a covenant not to compete, the phrase the statutes use.
Your state decides how much of a 25-mile clause survives
The same 25-mile clause means something different in each state. Texas caps a physician's covenant at no more than a five-mile radius from the location at which the physician primarily practiced 1Ref 1Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025).S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners.The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date.. Pennsylvania makes a new non-compete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA void and unenforceable by default 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date.. California makes a contract restraining a person from a lawful profession, trade or business void to that extent, except as its own chapter provides 3Ref 3California Legislature (2024).California Business and Professions Code Section 16600.California's rule making a contract that restrains a person from a lawful profession, trade or business void to that extent, except as its own chapter provides, used as the contrast case in which a 25-mile clause has no radius to measure..
Colorado voids a covenant restricting the right to practice medicine where it sits in an agreement between physicians 4Ref 4Colorado General Assembly (2022).House Bill 22-1317 — Concerning Restrictive Employment Agreements (amending C.R.S. § 8-2-113).Colorado's rule voiding a covenant restricting a physician's right to practice medicine in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians while a related termination-damages provision stands, the notice a prospective worker and a current worker must receive, and the penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed for presenting a void covenant.. The four rules below are not variations on one another.
| State | What the statute does to a clinician non-compete |
|---|---|
| California | A contract restraining a lawful profession is void to that extent, except as the same chapter provides, so there is no radius left to measure 3Ref 3California Legislature (2024).California Business and Professions Code Section 16600.California's rule making a contract that restrains a person from a lawful profession, trade or business void to that extent, except as its own chapter provides, used as the contrast case in which a 25-mile clause has no radius to measure. |
| Pennsylvania | A new covenant against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA is void by default, with one narrow exception 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date. |
| Colorado | A non-compete in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians restricting the right to practice medicine is void, though related termination-damages provisions stand; a covered worker's covenant arrives in a separate signed document, before a new hire accepts the offer or at least 14 days ahead for a current worker 4Ref 4Colorado General Assembly (2022).House Bill 22-1317 — Concerning Restrictive Employment Agreements (amending C.R.S. § 8-2-113).Colorado's rule voiding a covenant restricting a physician's right to practice medicine in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians while a related termination-damages provision stands, the notice a prospective worker and a current worker must receive, and the penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed for presenting a void covenant. |
| Texas | The covenant survives, capped at five miles from the primary practice location and one year from separation, with a buyout the physician may exercise, capped at a year of salary and wages 1Ref 1Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025).S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners.The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date. |
Dates decide whether any of it reaches you. The Texas caps apply to a covenant entered into or renewed on or after Sept. 1, 2025 1Ref 1Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025).S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners.The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date., and the Pennsylvania act does not reach one signed before Jan. 1, 2025 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date.. Check the signature date on your agreement against the statute you are counting on.
Four states are not a map. Find the statute for the state where you would practice, and read it against the state where you signed, because those are not always the same one. Before you price a lease, spend an hour with state caps on clinician non-competes.
What happened to the FTC's federal ban?
The Federal Trade Commission issued a Non-Compete Clause Rule in 2024 that would have banned new worker non-competes nationwide from Sept. 4, 2024, and that by its own terms left a stricter state protection standing while displacing a more permissive state law 5Ref 5Federal Trade Commission (2024).Non-Compete Clause Rule (16 CFR Parts 910 and 912).The 2024 Non-Compete Clause Rule as written: its nationwide ban on new worker non-competes effective Sept. 4, 2024, and its own preemption logic leaving a stricter state protection standing while displacing a more permissive state law.. A federal district court set the rule aside in 2024, and as of July 2026 employer non-competes remain governed by state law while appeals proceed 6Ref 6Federal Trade Commission (2024).Noncompete Rule.The rule's litigation posture with its as-of framing: set aside by a federal district court in 2024, so employer non-competes remain governed by state law while appeals proceed, as of July 2026..
So the location decision rests on the state statute. A federal development could loosen a clause later, and the rule's status is worth confirming on the day you decide, since the posture above carries a July 2026 date. Do not price a lease on a federal change that has not landed.
The preemption logic in the 2024 text is worth reading against your own state's statute. Whether a federal ban would add anything where you practice depends on what your state already does.
The anchor point moves the circle more than the mileage does
A radius needs a center, and the one statute here that caps one is specific about where it sits. Texas measures from the location at which the physician primarily practiced before the contract ended 1Ref 1Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025).S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners.The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date.. Pennsylvania caps no mileage at all, but its act defines the primary health care facility or office as the place where a majority of the revenue derived from the practitioner's services is generated 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date.. Two clinicians holding identical clauses can face very different circles.
A contract may borrow the same language. Under a revenue test the primary health care facility or office is something a clinician computes rather than something a badge declares. Pull last year's revenue by site. The site producing more than half of it is the one the definition names, and where time split across a main campus and two satellites leaves no such site, the clause's own wording has to resolve it.
Where the clause names every facility the employer operates, the count of live sites becomes the variable, and a site the system closed during the contract term is worth confirming in writing.
The exits that make the radius stop mattering
Several statutes switch the covenant off in circumstances a clinician can check the same afternoon. In Texas the covenant is void where the physician is involuntarily discharged from contract or employment without good cause, it must expire not later than the one-year anniversary of termination, and it must offer a buyout the physician may exercise, in an amount not greater than the physician's total annual salary and wages at the time of termination 1Ref 1Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025).S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners.The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date..
Pennsylvania's narrow exception turns on the same event. A new covenant there is enforceable only where its length is no more than one year and the practitioner was not dismissed by the employer, so a dismissal forfeits the exception outright 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date..
Colorado adds a procedural rule with a price attached. A covenant restricting the right to practice medicine is void in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians, though a related termination-damages provision stands 4Ref 4Colorado General Assembly (2022).House Bill 22-1317 — Concerning Restrictive Employment Agreements (amending C.R.S. § 8-2-113).Colorado's rule voiding a covenant restricting a physician's right to practice medicine in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians while a related termination-damages provision stands, the notice a prospective worker and a current worker must receive, and the penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed for presenting a void covenant.. A covered worker's covenant has to arrive in a separate document the worker signs, and the timing depends on when it is presented: a new hire has to receive it before accepting the offer, and a current worker at least 14 days before it takes effect 4Ref 4Colorado General Assembly (2022).House Bill 22-1317 — Concerning Restrictive Employment Agreements (amending C.R.S. § 8-2-113).Colorado's rule voiding a covenant restricting a physician's right to practice medicine in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians while a related termination-damages provision stands, the notice a prospective worker and a current worker must receive, and the penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed for presenting a void covenant.. An employer presenting a void covenant owes a penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed 4Ref 4Colorado General Assembly (2022).House Bill 22-1317 — Concerning Restrictive Employment Agreements (amending C.R.S. § 8-2-113).Colorado's rule voiding a covenant restricting a physician's right to practice medicine in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians while a related termination-damages provision stands, the notice a prospective worker and a current worker must receive, and the penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed for presenting a void covenant.. A void radius is not the same as owing nothing. Price the damages clause too.
The buyout is the number to price first. Where a statute caps it at a year of salary and wages, the question turns into arithmetic against the startup budget, and the answer can retire the radius before an attorney opens the file.
Telehealth answers a different locational question
A geographic covenant restricts practice inside a circle drawn on the ground, and telehealth is not organized on the ground. Florida's telehealth statute rests on the premise that a telehealth provider and a patient may be in separate locations when telehealth is used to provide health care services, and that an out-of-state practitioner reaches a Florida-located patient through registration rather than by opening an office there 7Ref 7Florida Legislature (2019).Fla. Stat. § 456.47 — Use of telehealth to provide services.The premise that a telehealth provider and patient may be in separate locations for the encounter, and that an out-of-state practitioner reaches a Florida-located patient through registration rather than by opening an office there..
Two documents answer the telehealth question before geography does. The covenant's own activity language decides whether treating a patient who lives inside the circle counts as practicing inside it. Licensure decides whether the clinician may treat that patient at all, and under what registration or compact privilege.
Florida works that way. Another state sets its own terms, so the rule to read is the one where the patient will be sitting. Read the activity language before assuming a video visit sits outside the circle.
What to check before signing a lease
Work the contract, then the statute, then the arithmetic. The contract supplies the radius, the anchor, the activity language and the term; the statute overrides them where a cap, void rule or buyout right applies; the arithmetic prices the buyout against the capital on hand.
1. Check the signature or renewal date on the agreement against the effective date of the statute you are relying on: Sept. 1, 2025 in Texas 1Ref 1Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025).S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners.The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date., Jan. 1, 2025 in Pennsylvania 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date.. 2. Write down the anchor the clause names and the method it uses to measure distance. Record the absence where it names no method. 3. Total last year's revenue by site. Pennsylvania's act defines the primary health care facility or office by where a majority of that revenue is generated 2Ref 2Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024).Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74.Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date., its own definition and not a mileage anchor. 4. Price the buyout, where one exists, against the capital you have. 5. Take the clause, the dates and the site list to an attorney licensed in the state where you want to practice.
That last step earns its fee on an ambiguous anchor, on a covenant the employer has already written to you about, and on a move across a state line where two states' rules each have a claim. None of it decides whether the second location is worth opening once the first is running, a demand question outside anything a statute settles. Arriving with the dates, the sites and the statute already pulled keeps the fee small and the answer fast.
Common questions
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- 1.Texas Legislature, 89th Regular Session (2025). S.B. No. 1318 — An Act relating to restrictions on covenants not to compete for physicians and certain health care practitioners. Texas Legislature Online (capitol.texas.gov), enrolled bill text. link ✓The Texas caps on a clinician covenant: the five-mile radius measured from the primary practice location, the one-year expiry, the buyout capped at one year of total salary and wages, the void-if-discharged-without-good-cause rule, and the Sept. 1, 2025 applicability date.
- 2.Pennsylvania General Assembly (2024). Fair Contracting for Health Care Practitioners Act, Act of Jul. 17, 2024, P.L. 846, No. 74. Pennsylvania General Assembly, official unconsolidated-act text (legis.state.pa.us). link ✓Pennsylvania's default rule voiding a new noncompete against a physician, DO, CRNA, NP or PA, its single narrow exception, its statutory revenue-based definition of the primary health care facility or office, and the Jan. 1, 2025 effective date.
- 3.California Legislature (2024). California Business and Professions Code Section 16600. California Legislative Information (leginfo.legislature.ca.gov), official code text. link ✓California's rule making a contract that restrains a person from a lawful profession, trade or business void to that extent, except as its own chapter provides, used as the contrast case in which a 25-mile clause has no radius to measure.
- 4.Colorado General Assembly (2022). House Bill 22-1317 — Concerning Restrictive Employment Agreements (amending C.R.S. § 8-2-113). Colorado General Assembly, signed session law (content.leg.colorado.gov). link ✓Colorado's rule voiding a covenant restricting a physician's right to practice medicine in an employment, partnership or corporate agreement between physicians while a related termination-damages provision stands, the notice a prospective worker and a current worker must receive, and the penalty of up to $5,000 per worker harmed for presenting a void covenant.
- 5.Federal Trade Commission (2024). Non-Compete Clause Rule (16 CFR Parts 910 and 912). Federal Register, Vol. 89, No. 89, pp. 38342–38343 (May 7, 2024) — official PDF via GovInfo.gov. link ✓The 2024 Non-Compete Clause Rule as written: its nationwide ban on new worker non-competes effective Sept. 4, 2024, and its own preemption logic leaving a stricter state protection standing while displacing a more permissive state law.
- 6.Federal Trade Commission (2024). Noncompete Rule. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). link ✓The rule's litigation posture with its as-of framing: set aside by a federal district court in 2024, so employer non-competes remain governed by state law while appeals proceed, as of July 2026.
- 7.Florida Legislature (2019). Fla. Stat. § 456.47 — Use of telehealth to provide services. Online Sunshine, the Florida Legislature's official Statutes site (leg.state.fl.us). linkThe premise that a telehealth provider and patient may be in separate locations for the encounter, and that an out-of-state practitioner reaches a Florida-located patient through registration rather than by opening an office there.
https://www.gale.care/for-providers/se-noncompete-radius-25-miles · 7 sources. Competitor details are cited to dated public sources and maintained as they change; figures are estimates, not commitments. Synthetic demonstration.