Are Non-Competes Enforceable for Dentists and Dental Staff in Ohio?

Yes — within limits.

Ohio has no general non-compete statute, so what stands between a signed covenant and enforcement is the Ohio Supreme Court's reasonableness test from Raimonde v. Van Vlerah (1975): a covenant is enforced only as far as it is no greater than needed to protect the employer, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public.

Raimonde speaks to employees, so the same questions reach your whole team — associate dentists, hygienists, assistants and front-office staff.

Pay does not gate it.

None of the factors Raimonde lists is an earnings threshold.

The income lines live elsewhere: Illinois bars non-competes for employees earning $75,000 a year or less (rising to $80,000 on January 1, 2027), and Washington, D.C.'s ban applies to employees earning less than $162,164 as of January 1, 2026.

How the rest of the country treats dental covenants: see our guide to non-competes for dental staff nationally.

This page is the employer's view for Ohio.

If you are an associate who was handed a covenant, that is the worker's side of the question — see our guide to dentist non-compete agreements.

Start with what does not exist: a general Ohio non-compete statute.

The rules a covenant lives under come from case law, led by Raimonde v. Van Vlerah, 42 Ohio St.2d 21 (1975), where the Ohio Supreme Court held: "A covenant restraining an employee from competing with his former employer upon termination of employment is reasonable if it is no greater than is required for the protection of the employer, does not impose undue hardship on the employee, and is not injurious to the public."

Raimonde also changed what happens to an overbroad draft.

The court retired the old "blue pencil" test — its application, the court said, had produced arbitrary and inconsistent results — in favor of a rule of reasonableness that empowers courts to modify or amend employment agreements.

In practice, an Ohio court can enforce a narrowed version of your covenant rather than striking it.

The rewrite is a safety net, not a plan.

The federal layer is quiet: the FTC's 2024 non-compete rule was set aside in court and never took effect, and in a final rule published February 12, 2026 the FTC removed it from the Code of Federal Regulations.

The FTC has said it can still challenge individual non-competes case by case when they are unjustified, overbroad or anticompetitive — one more reason to keep covenants defensible on their own terms.

Watch the Statehouse too.

Senate Bill 11 (136th General Assembly) would ban post-employment non-competes outright; it was introduced January 22, 2025 and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 29, 2025, and the legislature's status page showed no later action as of October 7, 2026.

It is a bill, not a law.

The research for this guide found no Ohio statute specific to non-competes for dentists, dental hygienists or other health care workers in force as of October 7, 2026 — Raimonde's general test is what a dental covenant faces.

That finding came without a full Ohio Revised Code search, so have counsel confirm it before you rely on it.

One health-care bill is narrower than it sounds.

Senate Bill 301 (136th General Assembly) would regulate non-compete provisions in certain health care professional employment contracts — but only with nonprofit hospitals, so it would not reach private dental practices.

It was introduced October 21, 2025, referred to the Senate General Government Committee on October 29, 2025, and the status page showed no later action as of October 7, 2026.

One signpost from the case itself: Raimonde was a professional-practice dispute — the employer sought to stop a former associate from practicing veterinary medicine in violation of their contract.

That is the same shape as an associate-dentist covenant, which is why the case carries over.

The research behind this page did not cover an Ohio decision applying it to a dental practice, though, so treat the parallel as an analogy, not precedent on your exact facts.

Contract law and licensing run on separate tracks, and what Ohio requires of an associate's license is its own question — see our guide to dentist licensure in Ohio.

Raimonde runs on three gate questions — is the covenant no greater than required to protect the employer, does it avoid undue hardship on the employee, is it not injurious to the public — weighed against factors that include:

• Time and space limits — how long the restriction runs, and over what area.
• Who owned the relationship — whether the employee was the sole contact with the customer; in a practice, that maps onto whether the departing clinician was the patients' point of contact or one of several.
• Confidential information or trade secrets — whether the employee is possessed with them. A patient list is the compilation the federal trade-secret definition names, and it only qualifies if you took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known.
• What the covenant targets — competition that would be unfair to the practice, or merely the ordinary competition that comes with any departure.
• Hardship — including whether the covenant would bar the employee's sole means of support.

Two things the test does not hand you: numbers.

As Raimonde records it, the test sets no maximum number of months for a term or miles for an area — the reasonableness of your time and area limits is judged on the facts of the job.

And the rewrite power means an overreaching draft can come back narrowed rather than dead.

Draft so you never need the rewrite.

This page's research covers Ohio non-competes, not non-solicitation clauses — treat a non-solicit as its own instrument with its own review.

For how these restrictions are built, see our guide to patient and staff non-solicits.

Confidentiality has a federal backstop.

Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, the owner of a misappropriated trade secret related to a product or service in interstate commerce can sue in federal court — but business information, including compilations such as a patient list, is a trade secret only if you took reasonable measures to keep it secret and it has independent economic value from not being generally known.

The same law caps the remedy: a DTSA injunction may not prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship, and conditions on the new job must rest on evidence of threatened misappropriation — not merely on what the person knows.

The paperwork and the habits matter as much as the clause: locked-down records access and a signed confidentiality agreement can turn "our patient list is secret" into something a court can act on.

None of this argues against covenants in Ohio — only for drafting to the test the covenant will actually face:

• Draft narrow on purpose. The covenant that survives Raimonde review is the one no greater than required to protect the practice — keep the term and the area as tight as the protection you need.
• Set the area by evidence. Tie the restricted radius to where your patients actually come from and who actually holds those relationships, not to a line on a map.
• Aim at unfair competition, not ordinary competition. Patient relationships and confidential information are the interests the factors ask about; a covenant that reads as punishing an ordinary departure is the weaker draft.
• Layer the other tools. Patient and staff non-solicits, confidentiality terms backed by real secrecy measures, and training repayment agreements each do a job a non-compete cannot — each with its own rules.
• Hiring across state lines? Oregon requires a written offer at least two weeks before start, Massachusetts the covenant by the formal offer or 10 business days before employment starts, Illinois 14 calendar days to review, and Colorado and New Hampshire disclosure before acceptance — check the other state's rule before the packet goes out.
• Recheck the bills before your next hiring round. SB 11 and SB 301 are pending, not law; the legislature's status pages are the current word.
• Have Ohio employment counsel review the final language before it goes into an offer packet.