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

Yes, with drafting discipline.

Kansas enforces a non-compete against a therapist, counselor, clinical social worker, psychologist or behavior analyst when the restraint is reasonable under the circumstances and not adverse to the public welfare — the test the Kansas Supreme Court applied in its 1996 Weber decision — and when it protects a legitimate business interest rather than simply blocking ordinary competition.

There is no Kansas ban on non-competes for healthcare or behavioral health professionals.

A 2025-2026 bill to create one, Senate Bill 504, died without leaving committee.

What Kansas does have is a statute, Kansas Statutes section 50-163, that makes compliant client and co-worker non-solicits conclusively enforceable — which is why most of your drafting attention should go there (below).

For where Kansas sits nationally — the states that ban these clauses outright, the fate of the federal rule — see our guide to non-competes nationally.

Both, with different jobs.

Kansas non-compete enforceability itself is judge-made law: a provision of the Kansas Restraint of Trade Act (Kansas Statutes section 50-163) says the act is not to be construed to apply to covenants not to compete, so a non-compete is not tested under the act's restraint-of-trade provisions.

Courts apply the common-law test from the Kansas Supreme Court's 1996 decision in Weber: a non-compete ancillary to employment is valid and enforceable if the restraint is reasonable under the circumstances and not adverse to the public welfare.

The same statute still matters to you as an employer, because it governs the covenants around the non-compete: the conclusive presumptions for client and co-worker non-solicitation clauses, the duty to modify an overbroad covenant rather than void it, and the employee's preserved right to raise defenses.

Section 50-163 was last amended by Laws of 2025, chapter 74, effective July 1, 2025.

Our research found no Kansas non-compete statute specific to healthcare or to behavioral health — none for counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, behavior analysts, physicians or APRNs — and that search was not exhaustive, so have employment counsel confirm before you rely on the point.

The confirmed part: Senate Bill 504 in the 2025-2026 session, which would have enacted a healthcare professional non-compete ban (the "Kansas healthcare professional employment mobility and patient access act"), died without leaving committee.

Kansas has not banned non-competes for healthcare or behavioral health professionals.

On the sources we reviewed, every license you hire lands in the same place: a psychiatrist or psychiatric APRN is tested under the same Weber reasonableness framework as an LPC or a BCBA, and no statute we found names behavioral health licenses for special treatment either way.

If you hire across state lines, check how the destination state treats these covenants for behavioral health licenses — the national guide maps the states that restrict them.

Start with the interest.

Only a legitimate business interest may be protected by a Kansas non-compete, and a covenant whose sole purpose is to avoid ordinary competition is unreasonable and unenforceable.

Before you hand a clinician a covenant, be able to name what it protects — continuity of care for an active caseload, confidential scheduling or billing information, the goodwill of your practice.

Then reasonableness under the circumstances.

The Kansas Supreme Court's worked example is its 1996 Weber decision: a dermatologist's two-year, 30-mile covenant, enforced after the court weighed the potential injury to the public welfare from a shortage of dermatologists in Hays against freedom to contract.

That outcome is a reference point, not a safe harbor — two years and 30 miles survived, but the court weighs the circumstances of each case.

If your covenant is overbroad, it is not automatically dead: under Kansas Statutes section 50-163(b), a covenant not covered by the statutory presumptions that is overbroad shall be modified by the court and enforced as modified, with only the relief reasonably necessary to protect the interests at stake.

And expect the departing clinician to push back — section 50-163(c)(7) expressly lets an employee assert any applicable defense available at law or in equity, even where a presumption applies.

This is where Kansas statute works squarely in an employer's favor.

Under Kansas Statutes section 50-163(c)(5), a written employee covenant not to solicit, service or otherwise interfere with the employer's customers is conclusively presumed enforceable and not a restraint of trade if it is limited to material contact customers and does not continue for more than two years after employment ends.

A material contact customer is a customer or prospective customer the employee solicited, produced or serviced, directly or indirectly, or about whom the employee had confidential information — so draft the clause around the clients a clinician actually served or knew about, including prospects.

One caveat before you rely on it for a caseload: the statute says "customers," and our research found no Kansas decision applying this presumption to therapy clients or patients.

Treat it as strong support, and have counsel confirm how a Kansas court would treat a behavioral health caseload.

Co-worker non-solicits get their own presumption: under section 50-163(c)(4), an employee's written covenant not to solicit co-workers is conclusively presumed enforceable if it seeks to protect confidential information, customer relationships or goodwill, or lasts no more than two years following the employee's employment.

For how these clauses behave in other states, and the ethics codes that shape a client's transition when a clinician leaves, see our guide to non-solicitation clauses.

Let the non-solicits carry the weight.

Because Kansas makes compliant client and co-worker non-solicits conclusively enforceable, those two clauses — not a broad non-compete — are the surest protection for a caseload and a team.

Keep each inside its own conditions: the client non-solicit limited to material contact customers and two years or less; the co-worker non-solicit protecting confidential information, customer relationships or goodwill, or lasting two years or less.

Keep the non-compete narrow and interest-tied.

A two-year, 30-mile covenant survived Weber, so set your term and area from where your clients actually come from, not from a template.

Do not treat the modification rule as insurance for sloppy drafting — for a covenant outside the statutory presumptions, a court trims an overbroad covenant only to the relief reasonably necessary to protect the interest you proved, so the clause you enforce may be narrower than the clause you wrote.

Layer tools that restrain less.

A confidentiality provision protects your information directly, and for a clinician whose training or supervision your practice funded, a training repayment agreement is a separate instrument with its own rules — see our guide to training repayment agreements before adding one to a Kansas offer.

Whatever you land on, have Kansas employment counsel read the final wording — including how the customer-focused non-solicit presumption maps onto a therapy caseload.