Houston Medical Contract Lawyers for Physicians & Healthcare Practices

Houston Attorneys Helping Physicians & Medical Practices Draft, Review, & Enforce Healthcare Contracts

Contracts are an essential component in the operation of a successful medical practice. Whether you are a medical professional seeking employment, currently own a practice, or are looking to establish a new health care practice in Texas, your contractual agreements must be clear, enforceable, and in compliance with complex regulations.

The Houston medical contract attorneys at Hendershot Cowart P.C. assist providers across Texas with contractual matters related to their unique practice. By leveraging over 150 years of collective experience, our legal team effectively guides clients through drafting, reviewing, and enforcing medical contracts with their best interests in mind.

Call (713) 783-3110 to learn more about our Houston healthcare contract services.

Comprehensive Medical Contract Services

Physicians, physician groups, and healthcare businesses across Texas have trusted Hendershot Cowart P.C. with their most consequential contract matters for more than 35 years. Medical contracts are not standard business agreements – they operate at the intersection of healthcare regulation, business law, and employment law, where a poorly drafted provision can create liability, invite regulatory scrutiny, or leave a practice with fewer protections than it realized.

Our attorneys draft, review, negotiate, and enforce the full range of contracts that govern how healthcare practices operate and mitigate legal and compliance risks, including:

• Medical director agreements
• Management services agreements
• Physician employment agreements
• Independent contractor agreements
• Relocation agreements
• Call coverage agreements
• Marketing agreements
• Billing agreements
• Space and equipment leases and purchases
• Compliance plans and human resources documents
• Governance documents, including shareholder agreements
• Intake paperwork

We work with physicians and physician groups, hospitals, emergency rooms, ambulatory surgical centers, diagnostic labs, freestanding emergency centers, independent diagnostic testing facilities, pharmacies, and other healthcare facilities and entities throughout Texas.

Medical Director Agreements ­

Serving as a medical director allows physicians to increase their earnings and use their managerial skills to advance an organization's goals. Because these agreements are subject to increased scrutiny, they must be carefully structured to reduce risks of investigations over fraud and abuse, including violations of the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute. To meet state and federal standards, services listed in your medical director agreement must be necessary, properly documented, and compensated at fair market value set in advance.

We structure medical director agreements in accordance with how regulators examine their intent and validity. Does an agreement help establish protocols and systems for verifying quality of care or patient satisfaction? Is it to ensure staff members are properly trained and supervised? Or have agreements been given to the top referring doctors at a facility with little value to show? 

Management Services Agreements

Physician groups and other medical entities use management services organizations to handle various aspects of their business and allow physicians to focus on practicing medicine. In addition to properly structuring payment methods, agreements must clearly define a service provider’s obligations for managerial functions, including:

• Meeting the non-medical staffing needs of a practice
• Handling all accounting/bookkeeping/collection functions
• Providing medical equipment such as MRI and X-ray equipment
• Acquiring and leasing space
• Implementation of a compliance program
• Billing collection

Physician Employment Agreements

Your practice will be best served if all licensed doctors and medical professionals serving your patients are under a physician employment contract that clearly specifies the parameters of their services and scope of their employment. We create medical agreements that:

• Ensure non-compete agreements are properly structured.
• Ensure mutual indemnity when necessary. Employers often seek indemnity from employees against wrongful acts – but physicians may also need indemnity against wrongful acts of the employer, particularly if the employer is handling billing and collections.
• Provide for fair compensation. Compensation is far more complex than a base salary. Pay may be based on productivity, net patient collections, and other factors.
• Address intellectual property matters. Does intellectual property created by an employee belong to the employee or the employer?

Relocation Agreements

If the hospital service area has a need for a doctor of a certain specialty, the doctor may be offered the opportunity to establish a solo practice or group within that location. The hospital will guarantee a certain fee until the practice is up and running. We review and draft relocation agreements between doctor and hospital or doctor and medical group and hospital, if the doctor is joining an existing practice.

Call Coverage Agreements

Call coverage agreements can ensure physicians are fairly compensated for providing emergency coverage to hospitals and emergency rooms. We can help ensure your medical agreement is sound, compliant, and can withstand scrutiny in an investigation.

Space, Equipment Leases and Purchase Agreements

When starting a new practice or medical venture, you will need to secure space to operate your business. You will also need to purchase, lease, or rent medical and non-medical equipment. The agreements you make for space and equipment must be specifically tailored and must comply with various rules (including those for mobile and fixed equipment, full- and part-time leases, etc.).

Mobile Diagnostic Testing Agreements

Agreements related to mobile diagnostic testing (those where a medical practice leases diagnostic tools such as an MRI machine, and secures the services of a technician to operate the equipment) are heavily scrutinized for their compliance with state and federal regulations, including the Anti-Markup Rule.

Non-Competes for Physicians and Other Healthcare Practitioners

When properly drafted and implemented, non-compete agreements can allow for enforcement when terms are breached. To ensure enforceability, non-competes must be reasonable in geographic area, scope of activity, and time.

Texas law has always imposed additional requirements on physician non-competes – and those requirements became significantly more protective when Texas Senate Bill 1318 took effect September 1, 2025. The law also extended non-compete protections to dentists, nurses, and physician assistants for the first time.

For agreements entered into or renewed on or after September 1, 2025, non-compete agreements with physicians and covered healthcare practitioners must:

• Restrict practice only within a five-mile radius of where the physician or practitioner primarily practiced – not across an entire metro area or every location where they worked
• Cap the restriction period at one year from the date of termination
• Include a defined buyout provision that does not exceed the practitioner's total annual salary and wages at the time of termination
• Permit the physician to continue treating patients with acute conditions after separation
• Allow the physician access to records for patients treated within the year prior to separation

Agreements signed before September 1, 2025, remain governed by prior law unless renewed or modified.

Trust Proven Houston Medical Contract Lawyers

Medical contracts define the terms of your livelihood, the boundaries of your liability, and the protections available to you when things don't go as planned. A poorly drafted agreement – or one signed without careful review – can restrict your career, expose your practice to regulatory scrutiny, or leave you without recourse when a dispute arises.

Hendershot Cowart P.C. has represented physicians, physician groups, and healthcare entities across Texas for more than 35 years. We understand the regulatory landscape these contracts operate in – from Stark Law and Anti-Kickback compliance in medical director agreements to the new non-compete rules that took effect for physicians and other healthcare practitioners in 2025. That knowledge informs every agreement we draft, review, and negotiate.

Whether you are a physician evaluating an employment agreement before you sign, a practice that needs enforceable non-competes and sound governance documents, or a healthcare entity managing contracts across multiple facilities, we can help.

Call (713) 783-3110 or contact us online to schedule a consultation with our Houston medical contract attorneys.