Leaving an Employed Physician Contract to Start a DPC Practice

The Exit Is a Project, Not an Announcement

Most physicians who move to Direct Primary Care are leaving something: a health system, a hospital-owned group, a large independent practice. The medicine ahead of you is the easy part. The exit itself is a sequenced project with legal, financial, and relational deadlines that overlap.

Do it in the wrong order and you can lose your patient base, trigger a contract dispute, or open with no revenue and no runway.

Step One: Read the Contract Before You Tell Anyone

Before a single conversation, get a copy of your employment agreement and read these clauses closely:

Have a healthcare attorney licensed in your state review it. This is not the place to rely on a colleague's experience or an online summary, ours included. Non-compete law has been in motion in several states and the analysis is specific to your language and jurisdiction.

Step Two: Build the Practice Quietly

Almost everything can be done before you give notice, and most of it should be:

None of this requires resigning. All of it takes longer than the notice period you are about to start. Our launch checklist sequences the full list.

Step Three: Give Notice in Writing, on the Contract's Terms

Follow the delivery method the contract specifies. Keep it short, professional, and free of grievance. You will likely need a reference, and in many markets you will be referring patients to former colleagues for years.

Assume the letter will be read by an attorney. Because it may be.

Step Four: Handle Patient Notification Carefully

This is where clean exits become messy. What you may say, to whom, and when is governed by your non-solicitation clause, your state's patient-abandonment and continuity-of-care rules, and in many cases your state medical board's guidance on practice closure.

Some general principles that hold in most states, subject to your own counsel's review:

Build your own audience before you leave: a public presence patients can find on their own is both the safest and the most durable option.

Step Five: Plan the Gap

Between your last paycheck and your break-even month there is a gap. Not a metaphor — a specific number of months with negative cash flow. Size it deliberately: personal expenses plus practice fixed costs, multiplied by the months you project until break-even, plus a margin.

See how many patients you need to break even and how practices finance the gap.

What We See Go Wrong

The Reason Physicians Do It Anyway

Because the alternative is another decade of documentation targets and fifteen-minute visits. The exit is a hard quarter. The practice on the other side is the one you meant to have.

*This article is informational and is not legal, financial, tax, or medical advice. Employment contracts, non-compete enforceability, and patient notification obligations vary by state and by contract. Consult a healthcare attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.*

Request a practice consultation and we will map the timeline against your actual notice period.