There's an easy way to solve this problem without non-competes: Treat your employees better. Usually by paying them more.

The entire concept of going to work for someone else is that it's supposed to save you a lot of trouble having to sell your services on your own/run your own business. If it has become so much more profitable for doctors to leave and start their own practice then they should be doing that because you're not paying them enough! You're not "making good" on your end of the bargain that we offer in civilized society.

Sure, and if a doctor is good enough, he can just start his own practice from the start and never have to sign anything since he never join any practice except his own.

That line of reasoning goes both way. If you sign something, then it was worth it for you.

>if a doctor is good enough, he can just start his own practice

It depends. Many instruments, such as PET in nuclear medicine, cost a lot. One have to work for hospitals/networks to help his/her patients with that instruments, no matter how good he/her is.

This perspective completely evades the actual argument which was that practices behave this way because they're extending access to their client base which is a resource they cultivated themselves and which will almost certainly yield a following the the new applicant.

A client base is not an exclusive resource that only the employer gets to have. If the doctor started a coffee shop and those same clients started going there for their coffee would it be the same? Or perhaps the whole point of such clauses is the very definition of anti-competitive behavior.

Also, if the doctor's patients all like him enough to switch to his private practice when he leaves then clearly they weren't paying the doctor enough. He was worth that many patients!

They could pay doc more if they didn't spend any money on marketing and retention but that would be a lose lose situation, especially as most docs bill money on a per visit basis.

Complete bullshit. The patients are not "theirs", they are not resources to be traded. The doctor is the one extending services to the practice. They're the ones who benefit from having high quality professionals attending to patients. Doctor-patient relationships are personal and it is 100% unethical to interfere in them with bullshit anticompetitive contracts.

> it's supposed to save you a lot of trouble having to sell your services on your own/run your own business

Can't stress this enough. Show up, attend to patients as scheduled then go home and enjoy life. All the boring details are taken care of. It's definitely more profitable to start one's own practice but the comfort of working at such places should not be underestimated.

Not always, a vet practise can have 1-5 million in fixed capital costs. Surgery, dental, x ray, blood and so on all add up. Sharing admin and vet techs helps too.

It's still an anticompetitive bullshit clause. The patients don't belong to the practice.

When my dentist retired his practice they actually sold the client list specifically, so I am not sure this is legally true. Morally I agree.

What exactly is this "client list" that they sold? Names and contact information?

Yeah, it's generally called good will. Client list, client interaction, services, and payments history, website, company name. The ability to figure out the best clients and continue the relationship with them.