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

No, for the clinical roles the statute lists — and Montana says so by statute, not just case law.

Under MCA §28-2-724, a contract with a listed Montana health care provider may not restrict the provider, after the relationship ends, from practicing or providing licensed services in any geographic area for any period.

The same statute also bars clauses that stop a listed clinician from treating or soliciting the employer's current patients, which takes client non-solicits off the table too.

Montana enacted §28-2-724 in 2023 and expanded it in 2025, and the behavioral health professions have been covered since 2023.

For staff the statute does not name — behavior analysts, RBTs, behavioral health technicians, case managers — MCA §28-2-703 voids restraints of a lawful profession except as MCA §§28-2-704 and 28-2-705 allow, and the Montana Supreme Court requires an employer to show a legitimate business interest before any covenant survives.

There is no federal rule banning employee non-competes as of 2026, so state law is what governs.

How Montana compares with the rest of the country — non-competes nationally tracks the other states and the fate of the FTC's rule.

Montana's governing law is a statute: MCA §28-2-724, enacted in 2023 (Ch. 479, Laws 2023).

That matters, because a statute states the rule in advance.

The 2023 version already covered psychiatrists and addiction medicine physicians along with psychologists, social workers, professional counselors, addiction counselors, marriage and family therapists and behavioral health peer support specialists — the 2025 amendments widened a statute that already reached your counseling staff.

Two 2025 acts changed the list.

House Bill 198 (2025 Montana Laws ch. 131) added naturopathic physicians, registered nurses, APRNs and physician assistants; it took effect on passage and approval and applies to contracts made or renewed on or after that date.

House Bill 620 (2025 Montana Laws ch. 698) extended the statute from psychiatrists and addiction medicine physicians to licensed physicians of all specialties, effective January 1, 2026, for contracts made or renewed on or after that date.

Both 2025 acts operate going forward — on contracts made or renewed on or after their effective dates — not on everything already in your files.

For workers not on the statute's list, the governing layer is different: MCA §28-2-703 plus the Montana Supreme Court's decision in Wrigg v. Junkermier (2011 MT 290), covered below.

Montana's healthcare statute names behavioral health professions directly, rather than stopping at physicians.

MCA §28-2-724(2) covers psychologists, social workers, professional counselors, addiction counselors, marriage and family therapists and behavioral health peer support specialists licensed under Title 37, chapter 39.

It also covers physicians licensed under Title 37, chapter 3, registered nurses and APRNs — which includes your PMHNPs — and physician assistants.

The list does not name behavior analysts, RBTs, behavioral health technicians or case managers.

That gap decides the drafting question for an ABA clinic: §28-2-724 does not itself bar a BCBA's non-compete, so a covenant for a behavior analyst is judged under §28-2-703 and the Wrigg reasonableness test instead — a real difference from your social workers, counselors and peer support staff, for whom no non-compete is available at any length or radius.

For the listed professions, there is nothing to balance.

The statute allows no time limit and no geographic limit, so the classic drafting levers — a one-year term, a radius around the office — simply do not exist for those clinicians in Montana.

The reasonableness question belongs to everyone else.

For unlisted staff, MCA §28-2-703 voids any contract restraining someone from exercising a lawful profession except as MCA §§28-2-704 and 28-2-705 allow.

In Wrigg v. Junkermier (2011 MT 290), the Montana Supreme Court held that employee covenants which only partially restrain trade are reviewed for reasonableness: the court asks whether the covenant is limited in time or place, based on good consideration, and affords reasonable protection without imposing an unreasonable burden on the employer, the employee or the public.

Wrigg also set a threshold that comes before all of that: the employer must establish a legitimate business interest, and the court stated plainly that Montana law strongly disfavors covenants not to compete.

In practice, a BCBA covenant copied from an out-of-state template starts behind.

Our research found no published Montana decision squarely on a behavior analyst's non-compete, so treat the position as untested and have employment counsel review any covenant you use.

Montana's ban reaches non-solicits as well as non-competes, and that catches practices that deleted only the non-compete paragraph.

MCA §28-2-724(1)(b) bars clauses restricting a listed provider from treating, advising, consulting with or establishing a provider-patient relationship with any current patient of the employer, and §28-2-724(1)(c) also bars clauses restricting the provider from soliciting or seeking to establish a provider-patient relationship with any current patient.

A client non-solicitation clause is therefore unenforceable against a listed therapist in Montana.

Two boundaries are worth noting.

The statute's provisions speak to the employer's current patients; they do not address asking a former colleague to move with a departing clinician, so how a Montana court treats an employee non-solicit is a separate question for counsel.

And the bar applies to the listed professions — a client non-solicit covering a BCBA is not prohibited by §28-2-724, though it remains a restrictive covenant that Montana law strongly disfavors.

States treat patient non-solicits differently from non-competes, and the difference depends on the state — Minnesota's 2023 non-compete ban, for one, expressly does not cover non-solicitation agreements.

Our guide to non-solicitation clauses maps the states and the ethics standards that shape a client handoff before you copy a clause from another state's template.

Start by taking the unenforceable clauses out of your templates rather than leaving them in as a bluff: for listed clinicians, that means the non-compete and the patient non-solicit.

A clause you cannot enforce still colors an offer.

Protect what the statute leaves open.

For listed clinicians, rely on confidentiality protections instead of the banned covenants: a confidentiality clause protects your information directly.

Treat your client list as a trade secret on its own footing: under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, business information such as a client list is a trade secret only if you take reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known, so lock down exports and limit who can pull a full caseload list.

Keep using the exceptions that remain: MCA §28-2-724 does not apply to a contract in connection with the sale and purchase of a practice, so a covenant given as part of a sale sits outside the ban.

And if you fund supervision hours or a credential, note that the statute's exception for repayment provisions that decrease over time is written for physicians — a training repayment agreement is a separate instrument with its own rules, covered in our guide to training repayment agreements.

Finally, fix the underlying exposure.

Montana's rules make retention, coverage planning and a written client-transition process worth more than any covenant — our guide to clinician retention covers the levers that actually keep clinicians.

Have Montana employment counsel review anything you do keep.