Physician Advocacy Day 2026: Your Voice at the Moment It Matters Most
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- Key Point: Executive Budget proposals could increase your malpractice costs, destroy fair IDR standards, weaken physician supervision requirements, and eliminate county vetting in workers’ compensation.
- Why It Matters: These changes directly affect practice stability, liability exposure, and patient access to care.
- Impact: Increased financial strain, administrative burden, and potential erosion of physician-led care models.
- What MSSNY Is Doing: Coordinating unified opposition briefs and organizing direct meetings with legislators during budget negotiations.
Register now for Physician Advocacy Day on March 10, 2026.
New York physicians are already navigating rising liability costs, insurer burdens, staffing shortages, and administrative strain. Now, several Executive Budget proposals threaten to further destabilize practice conditions — and patient safety — at a pivotal moment in state negotiations.
MSSNY’s Physician Advocacy Day on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, takes place precisely as the Assembly and Senate finalize their one-house budgets. This is when legislative direction is set, and when a physician’s voice carries the greatest weight.
This year’s advocacy agenda reflects urgent threats to the practice of medicine:
- A proposed 50% cost-share imposition on approximately 16,000 physicians receiving Excess Medical Malpractice Insurance coverage.
- A proposal to significantly weaken New York’s nationally recognized Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) system, shifting it in a more insurer-favorable direction.
- A budget provision expanding physician assistant authority by removing essential physician oversight safeguards — a measure strongly opposed by MSSNY and numerous statewide specialty societies due to patient safety concerns.
- A proposal eliminating the county medical society vetting process for physicians participating in Workers’ Compensation.
As detailed in the joint coalition letter signed by MSSNY and major specialty societies, removing physician oversight risks diminished care coordination, increased healthcare costs, and compromised patient safety. The letter emphasizes that improving New York’s practice environment, not weakening standards, is essential to retaining physicians in the state.
MSSNY has formally submitted Support–Oppose budget briefs, coordinated sign-on letters with specialty societies, and united 39 county medical societies in defense of physician-led care. But legislative influence depends on presence.
During Advocacy Day, physicians will hear directly from legislative leaders and the Commissioner of Health before meeting with their elected officials in organized district-based meetings. MSSNY coordinates logistics, policy briefings, and scheduling to ensure your time away from patients is efficient and impactful.
Advocacy Day transforms individual frustrations into unified professional influence.
If medicine is your profession, health policy is your business.
Register today and join your colleagues in Albany as MSSNY, the Voice of New York Physicians, works to protect your patients, your practice, and the future of medicine in New York.
