Legislative Updates

HISTORIC LEGISLATIVE SESSION CONCLUDES June 24,2011 (FOR NOW)

The New York State Legislature concluded the scheduled portion of its 2011 Legislative Session late Friday night, June 24.  The 2011 Session will long be remembered for working with Governor Cuomo in a major attempt to place New York State on more sound financial footing.  It began with the enactment of a State Budget which included a cut of $10 billion without increasing taxes or fees, and concluded with the enactment of a 2% property tax cap.  The Budget included major Medicaid cuts and other cost containment actions that affected all health care providers, health insurers, and drug manufacturers.  The session will also be remembered for its historic vote on the issue of same-sex marriage.

 

Given that some issues remain outstanding, return of the Senate and/or Assembly to Albany for a brief special session later in the year may well be necessary. 

 

MSSNY, working together with county and specialty medical societies, made substantial progress on its two priority issues of medical liability reform and enactment of collective negotiation rights.  Never before this year had a Governor affirmatively linked comprehensive medical liability reform to State Budget stability, and never before had one House of the State Legislature passed legislation that would grant to independently practicing physicians the right to collectively negotiate with health insurance companies.  While these goals have not yet been finally achieved, the foundation has been laid to achieve future success.

 

Will Work to Advance Collective Negotiation for Vote Later in Year

With regard to the collective negotiation legislation, while concerns have been raised regarding some of the bill’s technical language as well as the impact the bill will have on the State’s public health insurance programs, Assembly leadership has committed to MSSNY its intent to work through these issues so the bill can ultimately be taken up in that house.   MSSNY will continue to work with all key policymakers to assure that the Assembly advances the bill for a vote when legislators return to Albany later this year.

 

Defeated Lawyer Bills

Moreover, your medical society, working together with allies in the hospital and business communities, successfully pushed back against an aggressive legislative and political effort by the trial bar to advance a series of measures that would have driven medical liability costs far above their already intolerably high levels.   The lawyers argued that they were “owed something” as a result of the enactment in the State Budget of the medical indemnity fund for neurologically impaired infants.  The bills advanced, but were finally defeated.  They would have:

• Created a “date of discovery” rule for the statute of limitation;
• Expanded “wrongful death” damages; 
• Permitted the awarding of pre-judgment interest; 
• Eliminated the limitations on contingency fees;
• Prohibited ex-parte interview of plaintiff’s treating physician; and 
• Required that, when a medical liability lawsuit is brought against two or more defendants, a non-settling defendant must elect prior to trial to reduce their liability by either 1) the balance of the jury award to the plaintiff or 2) by an equitable share determined by the jury

Scope of Practice

Your medical society, working together with affected specialty societies, successfully pushed back against an aggressive legislative and political effort by many non-physician providers to expand their scopes of practice.  These included bills that would have substantially increased the scopes of practice of:

• Nurse Practitioners
• Dentists
• Podiatrists
• Naturopaths
• Optometrists
• Nurse-Anesthetists

Modest Victories

The session also produced some modest “wins” for physicians, with the passage in the Assembly and Senate of legislation (still to be delivered to the Governor) that would:

• require health insurance plans to cover screening, diagnosis and treatment of autism spectrum disorders;
• require health insurance plans in New York to cover orally administered chemotherapy treatment in a manner that is no less favorable than intravenous or injectable chemotherapy treatments.
• provide additional protections for individual and entity health care providers who are audited by the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG) for Medicaid overpayments. 

Yes, many problems remain and there are many things still to be accomplished.  However, the fact that there is much to do should never be allowed to obscure the fact that much has been done for our profession by MSSNY and by MSSNY’s physicians.  The defeat of the many bills which could have decimated your practice is yet another example where your relatively small investment of MSSNY membership dues brings back to you tangible financial benefits that far, far exceed your investment.  Moreover, substantial progress is being made towards enactment of legislation that is needed to preserve patients’ ability to continue to receive your services. 

 

We thank you for all of your grassroots efforts this session and request your continued efforts to achieve these needed reforms.

  

MSSNY DIVISION OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS