A two-year Newsday invesigation finds&nbsp;46 LI doctors were allowed to practice freely for months or years despite allegations like fraud, sex abuse and illegally dispensing opioids.

Long Island

Investigations

Broken Practice

State failed to discipline LI doctors for months, years after misconduct

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A Newsday investigation found&nbsp;46 LI doctors with criminal convictions, arrests or allegations were allowed to practice freely for months or years, often without restrictions.

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Despite arrests, complaints, convictions and judgments, 46 physicians were allowed to practice freely. NewsdayTV&#39;s Macy Egeland and reporters from Newsday&#39;s health and investigative teams have the story.

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Broken Practice: State failed to discipline LI doctors for months, years after misconduct

Nassau

Suffolk

Newsday

'We're all shattered in many different ways'

Joshua Solomon

The longtime chairman of the state's medical disciplinary board vacated his position in the wake of a Newsday investigation into doctor misconduct, which found that he simultaneously led the board&nbsp;and lobbied for the state's premier&nbsp;physician-advocacy organization. 
Dr. Thomas T. Lee retired as chairman of the state’s Board for Professional Medical Conduct in August, according to a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health. Lee confirmed the departure in an interview Thursday, while touting his dedication to transparency, patient care and removing "bad apples" from the system. 
"If I’m a distraction," Lee said, "it’s time for me to retire." 
<a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/investigations/doctors-bad-practice-jv6g7pz8">Titled "Broken Practice" and published in May</a>, Newsday's investigation found&nbsp;46 doctors on Long Island who held New York medical licenses without restrictions or penalties for months or years despite criminal convictions, felony arrests, civil judgments&nbsp;or other states’ disciplinary actions.&nbsp;The&nbsp;doctors &nbsp;included those with&nbsp;legal settlements &nbsp;and fines or who faced sexual abuse allegations. 
The investigation also found Lee held two positions at once: the unpaid chair of the disciplinary board and a top lobbyist for the physician-advocacy organization. Outside experts viewed his ability to lead a board focused on physician discipline while lobbying against legislation on stricter rules of discipline as a conflict of interest. 
Lee insisted it was not. 
A licensed neurosurgeon, Lee remains the executive vice president of the Westbury-based Medical Society of the State of New York, a position&nbsp;he has held since <a href="https://www.mssny.org/thomas-lee-md-mba-named-executive-vice-president-of-medical-society/" target="_blank">May 2024</a>.&nbsp; 
He had been the chairman of the state’s disciplinary board since 2019. 
"I don’t want to stand in the way of real progress and reasonable progress," Lee said&nbsp;in a phone interview. "If I’m the center of the discussion, then we’re losing something valuable — time, resource-wise and attention span. Focus on something constructive moving forward." 
He said he was "offended" by the conflict of interest concerns raised over the dual positions, "because everything is done aboveboard." He said he was proud of the work he had done to educate the board and collaborate with the state Department of Health. 
Lee previously told Newsday there was no conflict in his role as the chair of the disciplinary board and his role as a lobbyist on issues including physician misconduct because he does not participate in discipline hearings or decisions, and the Health Department, in an ethics review, concluded no conflict exists. 
"It just reeks of conflict of interest," Robert E. Oshel, a former associate director for research and disputes for the National Practitioner Data Bank, a federal repository that compiles physician misconduct reports, &nbsp;previously told Newsday. 
Over the course of a year-plus in which Lee held both positions, more than 300 decisions came down from the board, according to a review of its <a href="https://apps.health.ny.gov/pubdoh/professionals/doctors/conduct/factions/AllRecordsAction.actionhttps://apps.health.ny.gov/pubdoh/professionals/doctors/conduct/factions/AllRecordsAction.action" target="_blank">discipline records</a>.&nbsp; 
Lee told the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government that he expected to be paid about $34,000 for lobbying this year, according to a filing he submitted in December. 
<h3>Bynoe bill</h3> 
One of Lee's&nbsp;lobbying efforts this year was on <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8325/amendment/A" target="_blank">legislation</a> State Sen. Siela Bynoe (D-Westbury) <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/investigations/doctor-discipline-broken-practice-bvjv49wo" target="_blank">proposed in direct response</a> to Newsday’s investigation. His organization is the only registered lobbyist on the bill. 
Bynoe’s bill calls for minimum penalties for doctors, changing the makeup of the board that imposes the penalties and more public posting of disciplinary actions. Bynoe introduced the bill in June, the waning days of the state’s legislative session.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
Under the proposal, doctors who are found to have been convicted of sexual abuse or harassment would have their license revoked. If the doctor was penalized in another state, they would face at least the same consequences in New York. 
If the bill became&nbsp;law, doctors who are found to have practiced with negligence multiple times would at a minimum face a two-year license suspension. 
Lee found the minimum standards to be a nonstarter, saying it papers over the nuance of individual situations. 
Lee said he believes there is less respect for physicians these days and that patients are more likely now to file complaints about long waits, overbooked doctor offices, which he said should be sent elsewhere. The "system itself makes patients frustrated," he said. 
Newsday <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/investigations/doctor-discipline-system-qtl92qax" target="_blank">found</a> investigations of misconduct complaints are getting slower as the state imposes serious penalties on doctors only half as often as a decade ago. 
Bynoe’s legislation would require the disciplinary board’s makeup to shift away from fellow physicians and more to lay people, including public health professionals. 
Lee said he is opposed to this measure because it would sharply depart from the state’s standards of having professionals serve on their respective industry boards. 
The office’s budget remained relatively flat over the last two decades, about $30 million, according to state data, while the number of licensed physicians rose by nearly 50%. 
Newsday's Arielle Martinez and David Olson contributed to this story <a class="p-smartembed" data-onecms-id="contentid/05147cea-dfc9-4161-a871-5b125a0262fe" data-onecms-type="storywidget" href="javascript:window.parent.actionEventData({$contentId:'contentid/05147cea-dfc9-4161-a871-5b125a0262fe', $action:'view', $target:'work'})" polopoly:contentid="contentid/05147cea-dfc9-4161-a871-5b125a0262fe">STORYWIDGET: INDOCTORS251114_relateds</a>

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NYS' doctor discipline board chairman stepped down to avoid being 'distraction'

NYS' doctor discipline chairman retired after questions about his dual role

AIAudio - NYS' doctor discipline board chairman stepped down to avoid being 'distraction' 


AIAudio - NYS' doctor discipline board chairman stepped down to avoid being 'distraction'

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David Olson and Arielle Martinez

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NYS' doctor discipline system: Slower investigations, fewer penalties

Slower investigations, fewer penalties under NY's doctor discipline system

Long Island state legislators are advocating for boosting resources for the office that probes doctor misconduct after Newsday revealed <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/investigations/doctors-bad-practice-jv6g7pz8" target="_blank">long-stagnant funding</a>, 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&nbsp;plans to introduce a bill to address issues raised&nbsp;in <a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/investigations/doctors-bad-practice-jv6g7pz8" target="_blank">Newsday’s investigation</a>, including a lack of background checks for new physician licensees and the dominance of doctors on the board that determines discipline. 
&quot;It’s lopsided in favor of the medical professional who’s being investigated,&quot; Bynoe,&nbsp;whose party controls both chambers of the State Legislature,&nbsp;said in an interview. &quot;That doesn’t appear to strike a balance for the purpose of looking at each case with objectivity.&quot; 
Republicans&nbsp;also called for action. 
Assemb. Ari Brown (R-Cedarhurst) said he will request legislative hearings and is &quot;rallying Long Island legislators to push&quot; for changes, including a funding hike&nbsp;for the state Health Department's Office of Professional Medical Conduct, or OPMC, which conducts the investigations. 
&quot;We need urgent action,&quot; 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 &quot;a de facto cut,&quot; accounting for inflation, said Assemb. Edward Ra (R-Garden City South). 
&quot;We just increased funding in our budget by $13 billion on all kinds of different things,&quot; Ra said in an interview, referring to the legislature’s May 8 <a href="https://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/state-budget-hochul-legislature-a1prf6ip" target="_blank">approval of a $254 billion budget</a>. &quot;So the idea that something like that sits the same for 20 years really doesn’t make sense.&quot; 
State Sen. Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) said she plans to speak with OPMC officials to find out if more resources are needed. 
&quot;It’s egregious what some of these doctors are doing, and they need to be held accountable, like in any profession,&quot; 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 &quot;takes this issue very seriously and will review any legislation that passes the Senate and Assembly.&quot; 
<a href="https://www.newsday.com/long-island/investigations/doctors-investigation-database-ydc9flx9" target="_blank">Newsday’s report identified 46 doctors</a> 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. 
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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 &quot;purposefully neglecting their investigatory budget. The legislature needs to increase funding in order to provide any sort of meaningful investigation process.&quot; 
<h2>Health officials ‘welcome ongoing discussions’</h2> 
Erin Clary, a spokeswoman for OPMC’s parent agency, the state Health Department, said in an email Tuesday that while&nbsp;the department remains committed &quot;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.&quot; 
OPMC reviews complaints and, if the allegation involves potential misconduct, investigates. If there’s enough evidence, it sends cases to the appointed&nbsp;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 &quot;physicians understand that one aberrant practice can affect the trust of the entire profession&quot; and support appropriate discipline&nbsp;of their peers. He noted that attorneys, accountants and real estate agents also are partially regulated by others in their professions. 
&quot;It makes sense for this board to have a predominance of physician members,&quot;&nbsp;said Lee, who also serves as the&nbsp;discipline board's chairman. 
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Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who examined physician discipline for her book, &quot;The Licensing Racket,&quot; 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, &quot;but it’s not as if you give the actual parties or the industry in question the ultimate decision-making authority,&quot; as with the physician discipline board&nbsp;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&nbsp;to be more &quot;voices that actually represent the patients’ interest.&quot; 
<h2>Past efforts failed</h2> 
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, &quot;It’s entirely up to&quot; states. 
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Lee has&nbsp;said that physicians’ employers, not the state, should decide whether to mandate fingerprinting and background checks, because &quot;physician practice is still a private industry.&quot; 
&quot;You’re putting a profession under unique scrutiny that other professions are not put under,&quot; Lee said.&nbsp;&quot;And that is unfair.&quot; 
Manhattan-based attorney Anthony DiPietro, who has litigated against doctors,&nbsp;said the state should prohibit someone like Lee from both holding a top leadership role in a&nbsp;physician lobbying organization and&nbsp;overseeing doctor discipline. 
Lee’s appointment to head the discipline board shows that &quot;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,&quot; 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&nbsp;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 &quot;risk to the public,&quot; a lower bar than the current &quot;imminent danger&quot; to public health. A summary suspension is temporary, before thorough investigations and hearings take place. 
Lee said&nbsp;&quot;risk to the public&quot; is open to many interpretations. &quot;That’s the type of ambiguity any disciplinary and legal proceeding should not have,&quot; he said. 
In his&nbsp;Wednesday statement, Lee noted that the medical society &quot;has a vested interest that physicians act ethically and professionally.&quot;&nbsp;He said the legislature &quot;appropriately rejected the former governor’s changes because of legitimate concerns about maintaining due process.&quot; 
<h2>Better informing patients</h2> 
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. 
&quot;If you’re indicted, that becomes public,&quot; 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. 
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Ilene Corina, president of the Pulse Center for Patient Safety Education &amp; Advocacy and a Wantagh resident, said an independent &quot;patient council,&quot; 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. 
&quot;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,&quot; 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 &quot;guilty until proven innocent.&quot; 
Bynoe said she is&nbsp;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. 
&quot;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,&quot; Bynoe&nbsp;said.

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

LI lawmakers: Toughen state doctor discipline system

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See list of 46 doctors

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Broken Practice: Doctor misconduct on Long Island

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