New York Delays Medical Malpractice Rates Pending Lawmakers’ Action

Acting New York State Insurance Superintendent Kermitt Brooks announced today that he is delaying the setting of new medical malpractice insurance rates.

He said the delay is to allow time for the Senate to respond to the Assembly’s approval of an extension of the freeze on medical malpractice rates.

That legislation is one of several bills being held up by the budget stalemate in Albany.

When rates for 2009-2010 are determined, they will be retroactive to July 1, 2009.

Governor David A. Paterson last August signed legislation as part of the budget to freeze medical malpractice rates for physicians for one year until June 30. Supporters said that without this legislation, many physicians would have seen as much as a 30 percent increase in rates.