Non-compete agreements in healthcare, and how they hinder patient care
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/hospitals-are-fighting-keep-former-doctors-seeing-patients-rcna134341
Ignore the fact this is from a mainstream media site, the information is still relevant.
As discussed before, part of why healthcare has become a dumpster fire is that we took away Main Street healthcare and replaced it with corporate behemoths. We took the personalized care out and became a managed care bottom dollar driven regime. Which needs to fall and be replaced. Many people say “well just leave the corporate regime and go work for yourself”. This right here is why several cannot: they have been locked into a non-compete.
What is a non-compete? It is part of your contract when you start employment that says “if you decide you do not want to work here, you cannot go work for ANYONE else within a certain geographical range for a certain number of years”. Some are very restrictive, and say you cannot work for someone else within 50 miles for 3 years. Others are 10 miles for 1 year.
I will use myself as an example. I live and work in the same community. The patients I treat are my community. Teachers, moms, dads, kids, etc that are all part of the community I live in. I have a vested interest in my community being healthy and good. If I were to be locked into a non compete agreement, I would not be allowed to treat people in my community, unless they were willing to drive 11+ miles away from the office I work in now. What does that do? It is a barrier to care. It drives a specialist out of the area they work and live in, and forces them to work in an area that isn’t part of their community. This is a big problem in our metro area. Where I work is a desert area for healthcare. The number of healthcare providers leaving is massive. While 20 miles away in another suburb, the surplus of healthcare providers is off the charts. If someone has a non-compete where I live, they are just creating more provider deficits, and ADDING to the already gluttonous suburb 20 miles away.
There is currently both state and federal laws being negotiated to remove non-compete agreements. If your state is in the process of passing a bill to remove a non-compete agreement, write to your representative and encourage them to vote no on a non-compete bill. It will be a huge step in eliminating corporate healthcare owning providers and letting them practice autonomy. It is step 1 to bringing healthcare back to the people, not the big corporations.
PE vampires have destroyed huge swaths of America. Healthcare to mobile home parks. Bloodsucking psychopaths.
Yep. Non compete agreements should be illegal because they interfere with the rights to work Just one more example of corporate capture.
OT. I read how the shutdown of Change, the insurance company caused one medical practice to have no money in the bank and so they sold the product to the United Health conglomerate. Congress should have long ago put a stop to hedge funds buying hospitals, loading them with debt and then declaring bankruptcy after stealing all the money they could. But then we’d have a representative government that works for we the people instead of their donors.