Long Island Legal Briegs: June 29, 2007

Long Island Business News, Jun 29, 2007 by Ross Daly

Surgery bill catches lawyers and doctors by surprise

A little-noticed bill that passed the New York Legislature in the final week of the 2007 regular session is likely to curtail many types of office-based surgeries.

The bill requires physicians who perform surgeries in their offices using anything more than minimal sedation to obtain national accreditation through a group such as the Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals and other health-care institutions. The bill, which had overwhelming support, now goes to Gov. Eliot Spitzer for his signature.

Among the procedures likely to be affected are colonoscopy, oral surgeries, liposuction and certain dermatological procedures.

Sen. Kemp Hannon of Garden City, the chairman of the Senate's Standing Committee on Health, sponsored the legislation in the Senate. The bill was cosponsored by his counterpart in the Assembly, Richard Gottfried of Manhattan.

In introducing the bill, Hannon said increasingly complicated and invasive surgical procedures are being conducted in private medical practices, causing concern for a state Department of Health about the quality of care provided. Under existing state law, the Health Department had no oversight of office-based surgeries; physicians, like all licensed professionals, are regulated by the Department of Education.

In a bit of good timing, Nixon Peabody sponsored a seminar on the changes for about 30 physicians and health-care managers June 20 at the Crowne Plaza LaGuardia in Queens. The firm expects to repeat the seminar once the bill is signed into law, said Claudia Hinrichsen, a partner with Nixon Peabody's health services practice in Jericho.

"I expect it will be packed," Hinrichsen said. "I think people don't even know this is coming at them."

Even lawyers in the field were caught by surprise by the quick- moving bill, learning of it just in the past couple of months. "It snuck up on us," Hinrichsen said.

The New York State Medical Society supported the change, and Hinrichsen said she was unaware of any organized opposition to the bill.

Physicians seeking accreditation to continue performing the procedures in their offices will face a fairly arduous process that requires developing and adopting policies and procedures and meeting certain staffing levels.

"We think for half of physician offices, it won't be cost- effective to go through that process," Hinrichsen said, noting that ultimately, some physicians will stop doing office procedures, but ones that remain will have more safety and more oversight. "It will advance the patient safety concerns."

Hinrichsen is a graduate of Hofstra University School of Law who represents health-care providers, including hospitals, physician groups and organizations. She is a past chairwoman of the Health and Hospital Committee of the Nassau County Bar Association.

Nixon Peabody has about a dozen lawyers in its health services practice on Long Island.

Personal experience leads to private elder law practice

Wendy H. Sheinberg, a former partner at Vincent J. Russo & Associates P.C., a firm with four offices on Long Island, has withdrawn from the firm and established her own practice, the Law Offices of Sheinberg & Associates.

Operating out of offices on Stewart Avenue in Garden City, Sheinberg's primary areas of practice are guardianship, elder law, trust and estate planning and trust and estate administration.

"The practice of elder law is different than other areas," Sheinberg said. "You're taking care of senior citizens, usually under very difficult circumstances, and you need that personal touch. You can't do that in a larger firm."

Sheinberg went into the practice area because of an experience with her maternal grandparents, with whom she was exceptionally close. Her grandfather learned he had cancer at about the same time her grandmother began showing signs of dementia. Sheinberg, who was practicing as a banking and real estate attorney, received a worried call from her grandfather in Florida.

She said she wasn't familiar with the field, but that he should contact the bar association to find an elder law attorney. With the attorney's aid, her grandfather was able to spend the last three years of his life talking about "real stuff, instead of worrying."

"I thought about what an amazing thing this woman had done for my family, and how cool it could be if I could do that for other people," Sheinberg said.

Sheinberg is a 1989 graduate of the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University and a 1992 graduate of the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.