Doctor Employment Lawyer Blog

Many hospitals start the hiring process by providing a physician with a Memorandum of Understanding. This documents usually lays out all of the terms that will be formalized in the final employment agreement. Since the Memorandum of Understanding is not an employment agreement, many physicians mistakenly believe that they can sign without obligating themselves to anything that would affect the employment agreement.

Memorandum of Understandings are the first step in the process of negotiation. It is the document that defines the basic provisions of the agreement. Often times, it will set forth key items such as the term of the agreement, compensation, duties, malpractice insurance, and even restrictive covenants. While it's true that the memorandum is not binding, signing it signals to the hospital or practice that you accept the details of employment as written and they can proceed to use those provisions in the final agreement.

Attempting to negotiate terms of the employment contract after you agreed to such terms in the memorandum puts a physician at a serious disadvantage. You're not barred from negotiating provisions, but you likely lose some credibility if you agree to terms in one document, but reject them in the actual contract.

Many physicians are asked to sign non-compete and non-solicitation agreements by their employers. When you are staring a new job, this sort of thing may seem typical or unimportant, but when you leave to pursue a new opportunity, you may realize that such an agreement can effectively keep you out of the marketplace.

If you have signed a non-solicitation agreement and are moving to a new practice, you likely want to send out an announcement to all of your past patients inviting them to come see you at your new place of business. This may seem like a great idea, but there is a lot of potential liability if you violate the terms of a non-solicitation agreement.

Some of these agreements are narrow and specific in that they only prevent you from actually soliciting patients, meaning you cannot ask your patients to switch to your practice, but you may be able to send out announcements advising them of your new location or offering to assist them in continuing their care at your former practice.

At the same time, many employers are going to greater lengths to protect their investment in practice developments. These agreements are drafted in broad terms and specifically prohibit you from even sending announcements to your patient list. Some such agreements even go so far as to attempt to prohibit you from initiating any communications whatsoever with patients. Whether or not a court would uphold such a broad provision depends on the language, and the court.

Make sure that you understand to what you are obligating yourself before you sign a non-solicitation agreement. And, at the very least, try to negotiate an exception for patients that you bring with you to your new employer.