House panel seeks 2nd opinion on doc bill
The House Business and Labor Committee spent much of its meeting discussing HB92, but will give the bill's supporters more time to get the Utah Hospital Association in favor of it.
The bill calls for limitations on the use of noncompetition clauses in doctor contracts signed after July 1. The contracts would be invalidated if they imposed a restriction on the rights of a doctor to practice within a particular geographic area unless the contract is for certain circumstances, or if the contract imposed financial penalties on a doctor for "terminating a professional relationship."
The bill, however, has several exceptions.
The sponsor, Rep. Rosalind McGee, D-Salt Lake, said the bill would bring "continuity of patient care, fairness and balance in contracting and free competition."
HB92 also allows a contract to limit a departing doctor's ability to recruit patents from an existing practice. A contract could restrict the departing doctor's solicitation of his patients at his former practice if those patients are told about that departure and provided the doctor's contact information.
"This gives the patient the right to make the choice," said Dr. Gary Rabetoy.
An attorney, Lauren Scholnick, said the bill "sets out guidelines for both employers and employees and lays out the rules of the game" regarding noncompetition contracts. "What we have seen is abuses and overreaching by employ- ers."
"What this bill says is we're not going to unduly restrict physicians. We're going to let them compete if they can compete, and we're going to say to patients, 'You make your own choices, and we're not going to restrict those choices with noncompete agreements,' " Scholnick said.
"A nonsolicitation clause in a contract would still be valid. The employer, a group, can tell a physician that you cannot solicit. That's not the same as a noncompete agreement. What this bill is saying is, you can't tell somebody that they can't set up a competing practice."
Some states have limited physician noncompetition agreements and a few have banned them altogether.
Michelle McOmber of the Utah Medical Association said some noncompetition contracts have such a large scope that departing physicians often have to leave the state entirely in order to continue to practice.
But several lawmakers questioned various elements of the bill, and Dave Gessel of the Utah Hospital Association testified that the association had no position on the bill. That prompted the committee's chairman, Rep. Stephen Clark, R-Provo, to suggest further negotiations. "I think you'd get a lot more support if the hospitals are on board," he told McGee, who replied that suggestion "makes sense."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com
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