Long Island lawmakers call for more funding, patient protections in doctor discipline

Long Island state legislators are advocating for boosting resources for the office that probes doctor misconduct after Newsday revealed long-stagnant funding, a significant drop in serious physician penalties and much longer investigation times.

State Sen. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury), who supports a budget increase, said she plans to introduce a bill to address issues raised in Newsday’s investigation, including a lack of background checks for new physician licensees and the dominance of doctors on the board that determines discipline.

"It’s lopsided in favor of the medical professional who’s being investigated," Bynoe, whose party controls both chambers of the State Legislature, said in an interview. "That doesn’t appear to strike a balance for the purpose of looking at each case with objectivity."

Republicans also called for action.

Assemb. Ari Brown (R-Cedarhurst) said he will request legislative hearings and is "rallying Long Island legislators to push" for changes, including a funding hike for the state Health Department's Office of Professional Medical Conduct, or OPMC, which conducts the investigations.

"We need urgent action," he wrote in an email, decrying how, as Newsday found, the number of serious disciplinary actions taken against physicians fell 35% over a decade while the number of complaints and doctors rose.

The lack of a significant increase in the office’s budget over the past two decades amounts to "a de facto cut," accounting for inflation, said Assemb. Edward Ra (R-Garden City South).

"We just increased funding in our budget by $13 billion on all kinds of different things," Ra said in an interview, referring to the legislature’s May 8 approval of a $254 billion budget. "So the idea that something like that sits the same for 20 years really doesn’t make sense."

State Sen. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) said she plans to speak with OPMC officials to find out if more resources are needed.

"It’s egregious what some of these doctors are doing, and they need to be held accountable, like in any profession," she said.

Spokespeople for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) did not respond to requests for comment on the OPMC budget and other Newsday findings.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office declined to comment on OPMC’s budget or on other proposed changes to the physician discipline system.

But Hochul spokeswoman Nicolette Simmonds said in an email that the governor "takes this issue very seriously and will review any legislation that passes the Senate and Assembly."

Newsday’s report identified 46 doctors on Long Island whom the state allowed to practice freely for months or years despite criminal convictions, felony arrests, civil judgments, disciplinary actions in other states and by Medicaid, legal settlements that involved fines or sexual abuse allegations.

It also found that investigations of misconduct complaints are getting slower as the state imposes serious penalties on doctors only half as often as a decade ago. The OPMC budget increased only slightly between the fiscal years ending in 2005 and 2015, from $30.2 million to $31.3 million before falling to $30.8 million in 2025 — even as the number of physicians statewide rose 48% over those 20 years, state data shows.

Attorney Helene Weiss, who has represented hundreds of alleged victims of physician sexual abuse, including dozens of Long Islanders, said in response to Newsday’s findings that the flat funding over two decades shows the state seems to be "purposefully neglecting their investigatory budget. The legislature needs to increase funding in order to provide any sort of meaningful investigation process."

Health officials ‘welcome ongoing discussions’

Erin Clary, a spokeswoman for OPMC’s parent agency, the state Health Department, said in an email Tuesday that while the department remains committed "to thoroughly investigating complaints to protect patients and the public ... we welcome ongoing discussions with the Legislature about how to strengthen our work and improve outcomes for New Yorkers."

OPMC reviews complaints and, if the allegation involves potential misconduct, investigates. If there’s enough evidence, it sends cases to the appointed 89-member Board for Professional Medical Conduct.

By law, board committees that mete out discipline must have a majority of two doctors to one nonphysician.

Dr. Thomas T. Lee, executive vice president and the highest-ranking staff member of the Westbury-based Medical Society of the State of New York, which represents the interests of doctors, said in a statement Wednesday that "physicians understand that one aberrant practice can affect the trust of the entire profession" and support appropriate discipline of their peers. He noted that attorneys, accountants and real estate agents also are partially regulated by others in their professions.

"It makes sense for this board to have a predominance of physician members," said Lee, who also serves as the discipline board's chairman.

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who examined physician discipline for her book, "The Licensing Racket," said there is no self-regulation in the criminal and civil court systems. Judges and juries often rely on expert witnesses to help reach decisions, "but it’s not as if you give the actual parties or the industry in question the ultimate decision-making authority," as with the physician discipline board in New York, she said.

Although the third member of each committee is not a doctor, some are health care workers or have some other connection to health care.

Carol Cronin, chair of the Patient Safety Action Network’s Medical Board Roundtable and a Maryland resident, said she doesn’t object to having some health care representatives on the New York board, but there needs to be more "voices that actually represent the patients’ interest."

Past efforts failed

For years, legislators and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo proposed measures to increase state scrutiny of physicians, broaden disciplinary powers and give the public more access to the process. But those proposals have largely failed, in some cases after groups representing doctors raised objections, including about preserving doctors' due process rights.

They included: requiring fingerprinting and background checks as a condition of obtaining a medical license; giving the health commissioner more leeway to temporarily suspend a doctor; notifying patients of doctors who are under investigation; and requiring doctors to expeditiously report criminal charges, not just convictions.

Supporters say the measures would help protect patients from problematic doctors, while detractors say some of them could ruin careers.

New York is one of only a few states that don’t mandate fingerprinting and criminal background checks to get physician licenses.

The Federation of State Medical Boards, more than two decades ago, recommended criminal background checks on all applicants. But Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, president of the federation and a former Suffolk County health commissioner, said, "It’s entirely up to" states.

You’re putting a profession under unique scrutiny that other professions are not put under.

— Dr. Thomas T. Lee, Medical Society of the State of New York

Lee has said that physicians’ employers, not the state, should decide whether to mandate fingerprinting and background checks, because "physician practice is still a private industry."

"You’re putting a profession under unique scrutiny that other professions are not put under," Lee said. "And that is unfair."

Manhattan-based attorney Anthony DiPietro, who has litigated against doctors, said the state should prohibit someone like Lee from both holding a top leadership role in a physician lobbying organization and overseeing doctor discipline.

Lee’s appointment to head the discipline board shows that "the New York State Department of Health is being run by a political lobbying group [the medical society] that’s there to protect doctors, and not patients," said DiPietro, who represents 175 Long Islanders who allege sexual abuse by a doctor who was criminally convicted after the state failed to act on a complaint.

Lee has said there is no conflict because he does not participate in discipline hearings or decisions, and the health department, in an ethics review, concluded no conflict exists.

But the society that Lee helps lead has opposed measures to toughen reporting requirements for potential misconduct and make it easier to suspend doctors accused of putting patients at risk, primarily on due process grounds.

A failed proposal in prior state budgets would have allowed the health commissioner to summarily suspend a doctor found to be a "risk to the public," a lower bar than the current "imminent danger" to public health. A summary suspension is temporary, before thorough investigations and hearings take place.

Lee said "risk to the public" is open to many interpretations. "That’s the type of ambiguity any disciplinary and legal proceeding should not have," he said.

In his Wednesday statement, Lee noted that the medical society "has a vested interest that physicians act ethically and professionally." He said the legislature "appropriately rejected the former governor’s changes because of legitimate concerns about maintaining due process."

Better informing patients

Efforts to inform patients of allegations against their physicians also have failed.

Former Assemb. Aravella Simotas (D-Queens) introduced a measure in 2019 that would have required doctors subject to ongoing disciplinary proceedings to notify patients of the investigation.

Simotas said in an interview that the proposal, which never got out of committee, only included cases that get past a first hurdle in the process: a determination by the Office of Professional Medical Conduct that there’s enough evidence to proceed with a more detailed investigation.

Simotas said that mirrors how the criminal justice system works.

"If you’re indicted, that becomes public," she said.

A separate proposal would have allowed the health department to publicly disclose the presence or absence of an investigation, if the commissioner deemed it warranted. Currently, investigations are made public only if there are formal charges, discipline or an action that is called non-disciplinary but can result in what are in effect license suspensions.

Where there’s potential for real harm ... there should be some ability for current and future patients to have some indication of that.

— Carol Cronin, Patient Safety Action Network

Ilene Corina, president of the Pulse Center for Patient Safety Education & Advocacy and a Wantagh resident, said an independent "patient council," not the commissioner, should make such decisions, because of the power doctors have in Albany.

Lee said public knowledge of investigations, especially when most cases are dismissed, could ruin doctors’ reputations without giving them a chance to defend themselves.

Cronin, of the Patient Safety Action Network, said the public should have a right to know if the state is investigating doctors for certain types of serious misconduct.

"Where there’s potential for real harm, ongoing harm, it seems to me that there should be some ability for current and future patients to have some indication of that," she said.

Another failed state budget proposal was to allow discipline against doctors if they fail to report being charged with a crime within 24 hours.

Clary, the health department spokeswoman, said although physicians must report criminal convictions within 30 days, they are not required to report criminal charges until they register or reregister their licenses, which occurs every two years.

Lee said the reporting proposal would make doctors "guilty until proven innocent."

Bynoe said she is concerned that physician wrongdoing often may go unreported. Many patients and others don’t know they have recourse if a physician commits misconduct, she said.

"There should be some public awareness campaign that this board even exists and how they can make the contact for the purpose for lodging a complaint," Bynoe said.