Clinicians are often subject to restrictive contracts. Salary transparency could help

When I was in college, my family moved three hours away from the city where we had lived nearly our entire lives – away from family, friends and support networks. Not by choice, but because my dad’s medical contract included a non-compete clause that didn’t allow him to work within 90 miles of where he had been practicing.

Changing jobs hadn't been the plan. It's just how it worked out.

Non-competes are common in medicine, and have only gotten more prevalent as a greater number of physicians began joining large employers rather than private practice. The agreements might affect as many as 45% of primary care physicians , the American Medical Association estimates. That number is significantly higher than the 18% of all U.S. workers that the US Government Accountability Office pegs as subject to them.?

And doctors aren’t the only healthcare professionals whose contracts might include a non-compete clause; nurses too have found their lives and careers upended as a result of these agreements, which have been yet another factor compounding the staffing shortage .

Non-compete clauses are restricted or unenforceable in five states: California, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Colorado (although the latter does have carve-outs for “highly compensated workers,” a threshold that started at $112,500 last year.) Massachusetts, meanwhile, specifically prohibits non-competes for clinicians, while New York is considering a sweeping, and controversial , ban similar in scope to California’s broad worker protections.?

The Federal Trade Commission last year also proposed a national ban on non-compete clauses. With a decision expected to come in April , medical societies like the American Academy of Family Physicians are ramping up outreach to publicize the toll that these agreements can take on doctors.

“What non-competes do is they often interrupt the doctor-patient relationship,” said Steve Furr , president of the AAFP and a family practice physician in rural Alabama. “Particularly for family physicians, we develop long-term relationships with our patients. Non-competes can break up that relationship.”

In an AAFP survey, 75% of family physicians said that non-competes have affected their practice, career or personal life, and 32% said the clause makes them feel trapped in their current positions. One doctor reported that changing jobs meant she had to move across the state, adding, “I likely would have stayed in that underserved region if I had a less restrictive non-compete.”

When I asked Furr what doctors can do to protect themselves, one piece of advice stood out. Furr encourages residents to talk to each other and faculty members about their contracts to get a better sense of how those packages compare to their peers’. Those conversations could also help close the pay gap in medicine, he added. Male physicians consistently out-earn their female counterparts, studies have found, even when accounting for factors like specialty, hours worked and non-clinical responsibilities.?

The push for salary transparency is an issue that’s been gaining ground across industries, with several states passing legislation that requires companies to post salary ranges; two bills also have been introduced in Congress. The AAFP, for its part, has been building its own compensation benchmarking tool .

Here at LinkedIn, we’ve seen the increase in job postings that list salary ranges as well as the growing number of people, especially younger professionals, who are voluntarily sharing what they earn.?

For a good example, you can check out this video below from nurse Louie Angeles , part of the #PeepthePaycheck series from my colleague Gianna Prudente . You can also read her story here .

And tell me: How would salary transparency affect healthcare professionals?? And have you noticed any changes in compensation discussions where you work?