By David A. Zarett, Esq. Email David
Adverse action by a hospital against a physician’s medical-staff appointment or clinical privileges—such as summary suspension, termination or non-renewal—poses potentially catastrophic consequences to a physician’s practice and career. While most hospitals afford the physician internal “due process” hearing rights to challenge the adverse action, such a remedy could drag on for months and afflict serious ongoing damage to the physician while the adverse action remains in effect. After the internal “due process” mechanism is complete, the physician must then proceed to an administrative review by the New York Public Health and Health Planning Council (“PHHPC”), which only has the power to request that the hospital reconsider its determination. See Public Health Law Sections 2801-b and c. Again, while the PHHPC’s review process drags on, the hospital’s sanction remains in place, and the damages and harm to the physician mount.
Compounding that problem, New York’s highest court in Gelbard v. Genesse Hospital ruled that a physician is precluded from running to court to seek preliminary injunctive relief to “stay” the adverse action imposed by the hospital, until the physician first exhausts administrative remedies both within the hospital and before the PHHPC. See Gelbard v. Genesee Hosp., 87 N.Y.2d 691, 664 N.E.2d 1240 (1996); see also Farooq v. Millard Fillmore Hosp., 172 A.D.2d 1063, 569 N.Y.S.2d 320 (1991) (“Physician’s claim for injunction based on hospital’s allegedly wrongfully denying him staff privileges was premature where physician had failed to allege that he had exhausted administrative remedies by presenting claim to Public Health Council”); see also Raggi v. Wyckoff Heights Med. Ctr., 123 A.D.3d 1044, 999 N.Y.S.2d 174 (2014) (“Physician and professional corporation seeking reinstatement of physician’s clinical privileges at medical center were required to file an administrative complaint with New York State [PHHPC] and await the administrative disposition of that complaint before seeking redress in the courts”). This exhaustion requirement significantly handcuffs physicians, because the physician would have already suffered irreparable harm that could not be undone even by an ultimate court victory.
However, a recent decision by the Appellate Division, First Department may change the legal landscape when it comes to the availability of preliminary injunctive relief. Specifically, in Anyichie v. Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, the First Department held that a claim by a physician that a hospital did not follow its own bylaws in imposing the adverse corrective action—such as the summary suspension—was not subject to PHHPC review in the first place. See Anyichie v. Lincoln Med. & Mental Health Ctr., 176 A.D.3d 616, 110 N.Y.S.3d 674 (2019).
Accordingly, it should follow under Anyichie that if a physician’s challenge to the hospital’s action were based on a claim the hospital failed follow its own bylaws, a physician could immediately seek judicial intervention and request immediate injunctive relief—since his or her claims were beyond the jurisdiction of the PHHPC and the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies articulated in Gelbard would not apply.
While Anyichie was decided only recently, it will be interesting to see whether this quite significant court decision alters the procedural landscape in which physicians dispute these types of issues with hospitals.
David A. Zarett, Esq., is a founding member of Weiss Zarett Brofman Sonnenklar & Levy, P.C., a Long Island law firm providing a wide array of legal services to the members of the health care industry, including physicians. Mr. Zarett devotes a substantial amount of his time counseling physicians who are the subject of adverse or corrective action imposed by hospitals.
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