Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Therapists and Behavioral Health Staff in Colorado?

Colorado voids covenants not to compete unless they fit an exception in its statute, Colorado Revised Statutes § 8-2-113 — and a 2025 amendment took the high-earner exceptions away from physicians and APRNs.

Where each role lands:

This page covers Colorado only; see non-competes nationally for the other states, including those that restrict these clauses for behavioral health clinicians.

C.R.S. § 8-2-113(2)(a) makes any covenant not to compete that restricts the right of any person to receive compensation for performance of labor void, except as the statute allows.

The current version took effect through House Bill 22-1317 on August 10, 2022 and applies to any covenant entered into or renewed on or after that date.

The exception is narrow: § 8-2-113(2)(b) allows a covenant only for a worker earning at least the "threshold amount for highly compensated workers" both when signed and when enforced, only to protect trade secrets, and only if no broader than reasonably necessary.

Colorado's Division of Labor Standards and Statistics (CDLE) sets the threshold — the greater of the August 10, 2022 figure or the figure when the covenant is signed.

CDLE's 2026 highly compensated figure is $130,014 a year (PAY CALC order, effective February 1, 2026).

That order is very likely the source of the 2026 non-compete threshold, but it cites CDLE's overtime rule rather than § 8-2-113 — confirm the current figure with CDLE or your employment counsel before relying on it.

Colorado's 2025 rule for clinical covenants matters most for your prescribers: Senate Bill 25-083 took effect August 6, 2025, applies to covenants entered into or renewed on or after that date, and removes the high-earner exceptions for covenants restricting the practice of medicine, advanced practice registered nursing or dentistry — void regardless of pay.

The bill defines a "health-care provider" as an individual licensed to practice medicine, registered to practice advanced practice registered nursing, licensed as a certified midwife, or licensed to practice dentistry, and counts physician assistants within the practice of medicine.

For a behavioral health employer: a non-compete or customer non-solicit against a psychiatrist or a PMHNP cannot be enforced for covenants entered into or renewed on or after August 6, 2025, whatever the clinician is paid.

The definition does not stretch to the rest of your staff: counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, behavior analysts and RBTs are not named, so their covenants stay under the general pay-threshold and trade-secret rules above.

The law also treats patient communication as part of the restriction: § 8-2-113(5.5) counts a covenant as restricting medical or APRN practice if it bars a departing provider from telling patients they were treating about their continuing practice, new contact information, or the patient's right to choose a provider.

For covered covenants, a clause stopping a departing psychiatrist or PMHNP from telling their caseload where they went is itself a void restriction.

Colorado puts the test in the statute: a covenant is either inside an exception to § 8-2-113 or it is void, and the high-earner exception recognizes only one business interest: the protection of trade secrets.

Process failures void covenants that would otherwise qualify: notice must arrive in a separate document the worker signs — before a candidate accepts the offer, or at least 14 days before it takes effect for a current worker.

How much time and how much territory a qualifying covenant may cover is a drafting decision — set it with Colorado employment counsel rather than copying another state's clause.

Price the downside too: an employer that presents, enters into or tries to enforce a void covenant owes actual damages and a $5,000 penalty per worker or prospective worker harmed under § 8-2-113(8).

Client non-solicits get their own, lower gate: § 8-2-113(2)(d) allows a customer non-solicitation covenant only for a worker earning at least 60% of the highly compensated threshold, and only where the clause is no broader than reasonably necessary to protect trade secrets.

At CDLE's 2026 figure of $130,014 (caveat above), 60% is $78,008.

For prescribers the 2025 rule bites here too: a customer non-solicit against a psychiatrist or PMHNP is void regardless of pay for covenants entered into or renewed on or after August 6, 2025.

Employee non-solicits — barring a departing clinician from recruiting your staff — are a different instrument.

Do not assume the 60% gate covers them; ask Colorado employment counsel before one goes into your agreement.

The national picture on non-solicitation clauses — which states allow which version, and what the ethics codes ask of a departing clinician — is its own topic; we cover it in non-solicitation clauses.

Audit what you already use before you hire again: the 2022 regime reaches covenants entered into or renewed on or after August 10, 2022, so check the date each agreement was signed or last renewed.

Check each covenant against the pay gate as of signing and as of today, and confirm each signed copy went out as its own document.

Separate the roles: for psychiatrists and PMHNPs whose agreements were entered into or renewed on or after August 6, 2025, the non-compete and customer non-solicit are off the table at any pay — retention there runs on the employment offer itself.

Use what Colorado does allow: § 8-2-113(3)(a) lets an agreement provide for recovery of the expense of educating and training a worker where the training is distinct from normal, on-the-job training, within the statute's limits.

We cover training repayment agreements — structure, limits, and wage-law constraints — separately.

Then put the final language in front of Colorado employment counsel: the statute was amended in 2025, CDLE's 2026 highly compensated figure is not confirmed as the § 8-2-113 threshold (the caveat above), and whether a clause reads as a covenant at all is the judgment a $5,000-per-worker penalty makes expensive to guess at.