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

Yes, with drafting discipline.

Non-competes for therapists, counselors, social workers, psychologists and behavior analysts live in case law, not a Missouri statute, and the governing test comes from the Missouri Supreme Court's 2006 Copeland decision: a covenant is enforceable only to the extent it is narrowly tailored geographically and temporally, and only to protect the employer's trade secrets or customer contacts — not to shield you from mere competition.

Two consequences follow.

First, you carry the burden of proof: the employer must substantiate its asserted trade-secret interest.

Second, nothing in the test turns on the clinician's license — it is a general rule about employee covenants, and the one enforced clinician covenant in the sources reviewed for this page, Sidebottom, involved a nurse practitioner.

For how other states treat these clauses — and the fate of the federal rule — see our guide to non-competes nationally.

Case law.

Missouri has no statute governing employee non-competes; the controlling authority is the Missouri Supreme Court's 2006 decision in Healthcare Services of the Ozarks, Inc. versus Copeland, which arose from a home health care business and its two former managers.

Their covenants carried 100-mile and two-year limits, but the managers never challenged those limits as unreasonable — so treat those numbers as the facts of that case, not a court-approved template.

What Copeland decided is the framework your covenant has to fit: narrow tailoring in geography and time, and a protectable interest in trade secrets or customer contacts.

One mix-up to avoid: Revised Statutes of Missouri section 431.202, in effect since July 1, 2001, is not Missouri's non-compete statute.

The section governs covenants not to solicit or hire employees, and subsection 431.202.3 says it is not intended to create or affect the validity of employer-employee covenants not to compete.

Your non-compete stands or falls under Copeland.

No Missouri statute specifically restricting non-competes for counselors, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, behavior analysts, physicians or nurse practitioners had been found as of October 7, 2026, the date of the research behind this page.

That search was not exhaustive — Missouri's 2025-2026 bills were not checked bill by bill — so have employment counsel confirm before you rely on the point.

That absence does not mean clinician covenants fail here.

In Washington County Memorial Hospital versus Sidebottom, a 1999 decision of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, a hospital enforced its covenant against a former nurse practitioner: the court affirmed an injunction barring her from practicing nursing within 50 miles of the hospital for one year.

She argued the hospital sat in a medically underserved area and that she had already agreed not to treat its patients; the Court of Appeals rejected those arguments and affirmed.

Sidebottom matters most if you hire psychiatric nurse practitioners: a Missouri appellate court has enforced an APRN non-compete.

For counselors, psychologists and BCBAs, no comparable Missouri appellate decision appears in the sources reviewed; as far as this page's research shows, the general Copeland framework is what governs, so draft narrowly.

Copeland asks two questions of a Missouri non-compete: how far and how long it reaches, and what it protects.

Legitimate business interest.

The interests Copeland protects are trade secrets and customer contacts.

Missouri courts define customer contacts as essentially the influence an employee acquires over the employer's customers through personal contact.

For a therapy practice, the closest analog is the relationships a clinician builds with your clients and your referral sources — though the case itself involved home-health managers and state caseworker referral sources, so it is an analogy, not a therapy decision.

Time and area.

The restraint must be narrowly tailored in both, and no source reviewed for this page hands Missouri practices a safe number of miles or months — the 100-mile, two-year covenants in Copeland went unchallenged rather than approved.

Your burden of proof.

The employer bears the burden of substantiating its asserted trade-secret interest — so be able to name what the covenant protects before you hand it to a clinician.

One drafting caution: whether Missouri courts will rewrite an overbroad covenant rather than refuse to enforce it was not verified from a primary source in the research behind this page.

Treat overreach as a risk to the whole clause rather than counting on a trim, and have Missouri employment counsel review the wording.

Solicitation restrictions sit on firmer ground in Missouri than broad practice bans.

Client non-solicits.

Copeland points this way directly: the court noted that restrictions preventing disclosure of confidential information and restrictions on soliciting existing customers serve to protect trade secrets and customer contacts — the very interests Missouri non-compete law protects.

Your clause rests on that case-law framework — section 431.202 covers covenants about soliciting or hiring employees, not clients — so tie it to the clients and referral sources a departing clinician actually worked with.

How these clauses behave in other states, and how the ethics codes shape a client's transition, is its own topic — see our guide to non-solicitation clauses.

Employee non-solicits.

Here Missouri has a statute.

Under RSMo section 431.202.1(3), a reasonable written covenant not to solicit, recruit or hire employees is enforceable when it protects confidential or trade-secret information or customer relationships, goodwill or loyalty.

Under section 431.202.1(4), it is enforceable even without those interests so long as it does not continue for more than one year following the employee's employment — except for covenants signed by employees who provide only secretarial or clerical services.

Under section 431.202.2, a covered covenant is conclusively presumed reasonable if its post-employment duration is no more than one year.

Keep the statute's boundary in mind: section 431.202 governs covenants about soliciting or hiring employees only — it does not support your non-compete or cover your client non-solicit.

Because Missouri narrows non-competes, most of your protection comes from clauses that do not depend on stopping a clinician from practicing.

Write the confidentiality clause with care.

Copeland names restrictions preventing disclosure of confidential information among the restrictions that protect a legitimate interest — provided you can identify what that information is.

Prefer a client non-solicit to a broad practice ban.

The same case protects solicitation restrictions on existing customers; a clause covering the clients and referral sources a departing clinician actually worked with is the closer fit.

Add a one-year employee non-solicit.

A covered one-year employee non-solicit is conclusively presumed reasonable under section 431.202 — which by its own terms does not touch your non-compete.

Map your protectable interests before you draft.

Under Copeland, the employer bears the burden of substantiating its asserted trade-secret interest, so identify your referral relationships, your active caseloads and any genuinely secret operational information before you draft.

Layer tools that restrain less.

Where you front a clinician's training or supervision costs, a training repayment agreement is a separate instrument with its own rules — see our guide to training repayment agreements before adding one.

Whatever you land on, have Missouri employment counsel read the final wording before it goes into an offer.