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Non-Compete Breach Unravels for a Former DSO-Affiliated Dentist
A dental service organization sued a general dentist who had sold his practice to the DSO under a five-year employment and non-compete agreement, alleging that he opened a competing practice less than three miles away within a year of his departure and actively solicited patients from his former practice's recall list, in a dispute over lost practice value tied to the original sale. The DSO retained a dentistry expert with practice valuation and patient flow experience to compare the departing dentist's original patient panel against the new practice's registration records and analyze production data at both locations before and after the opening. The expert found that more than 40 percent of the new practice's active patients in its first year had previously been treated at the DSO-affiliated practice, and that the original practice's hygiene recall production had dropped by a corresponding amount over the same period. That patient-overlap analysis was central to establishing breach of the non-compete and contributed to a settlement that included a substantial cash payment and a geographic buffer on future practice locations.
