S03350 would expand New York’s professional-entity rules to allow certain licensed health service professionals to form multidisciplinary business entities together. The bill amends the Limited Liability Company Law, Business Corporation Law, Partnership Law, Education Law, and Public Health Law to permit combinations of physicians and a range of other licensed professionals — including dentists, veterinarians, public accountants, engineers, architects, landscape architects, geologists, creative arts therapists, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, psychoanalysts, and applied behavior analysts — to organize professional service LLCs, professional corporations, and registered or foreign limited liability partnerships for multidisciplinary practice. It also adds parallel rules for foreign entities operating in New York.
The bill places conditions on these multidisciplinary practices. Each member or partner must be licensed in New York for the profession they practice, may only practice within the scope of that profession’s enabling statute, and may not interfere with another member’s clinical judgment or direct another member to practice beyond their license. The bill also preserves existing rules for public accountancy ownership and non-licensee owners, while allowing fee pooling and fee-sharing within these multidisciplinary practices despite existing anti-fee-splitting restrictions.
S03350 would also amend the Education Law’s professional misconduct provisions so that fee-sharing prohibitions do not bar these newly authorized multidisciplinary practices from pooling fees or monies received. In addition, it updates the Public Health Law to clarify that these multidisciplinary practices are not treated as “hospitals” for purposes of that article, and it makes conforming changes to integrated-service language in the Public Health Law, including replacing older references to alcoholism/substance abuse services with addiction services and supports.
The general sentiment reflected by the bill text is pro-integration and pro-expansion of collaborative practice models. Although there are no committee transcripts or recorded votes in the provided materials, the structure of the bill suggests an effort to modernize professional practice rules and reduce legal barriers to cross-disciplinary health care delivery. At the same time, the bill is careful to preserve professional licensing boundaries and clinical independence, indicating an attempt to balance flexibility with regulatory safeguards.
The main points of potential contention are the expanded ability to combine professions and share fees, which may raise concerns about scope-of-practice boundaries, professional independence, and commercial influence over clinical decisions. The bill directly addresses those concerns by prohibiting interference with clinical judgment and by limiting each participant to their licensed scope, but those safeguards may still be scrutinized by professional boards, regulators, and groups concerned about fee-splitting or nontraditional ownership structures.
The bill would amend multiple New York statutes governing professional entities and health care regulation to expressly authorize multidisciplinary professional practices in LLC, corporation, and partnership forms, including foreign entities operating in the state. It would also create exceptions to existing fee-splitting and professional misconduct rules so these practices can pool fees and operate jointly, while preserving licensing requirements, scope-of-practice limits, and certain public accountancy ownership rules. The Public Health Law would be updated to exclude these multidisciplinary practices from the definition of a hospital and to conform integrated behavioral health language.
No committee transcript or vote record was provided, so there is no documented floor or committee debate to measure. Based on the bill text, the measure appears generally supportive of health care integration, professional collaboration, and business flexibility for licensed practitioners. The bill’s detailed safeguards suggest an intent to reassure regulators and professional boards that expanded entity formation will not weaken licensing standards or clinical autonomy.
The likely areas of contention are the expansion of multidisciplinary ownership and fee-sharing, especially in health-related professions where anti-fee-splitting rules have traditionally been strict. Opponents could argue that allowing mixed-profession entities may blur professional boundaries or create incentives that affect clinical judgment, while supporters would likely emphasize coordinated care and business efficiency. The bill responds to these concerns by requiring each member to stay within their licensed scope and prohibiting interference with another professional’s judgment, but those protections may still be debated by licensing authorities and affected professional associations.