A bill to protect Lyme doctors has passed the NY Assembly. An identical bill is stalled in the senate. Don’t let it die there!

Click here to send an email to your state senator. 

Background info:

Two bills that will protect patient and practitioner rights are currently before the NYS Legislature.Please help us defend patient rights and save our doctors by sending an email to your elected representatives. Please fill out the required boxes at the bottom of this page, tell your Lyme story, and click. Your letter will go to your state senator and assembly-person and several other important participants in the legislative process.

For the Lyme disease patient, who may also have other TBDs, individualized treatment choice can be the difference between a healthy life and one of chronic, disabling suffering. If the physicians who treat in accordance with the standard that recognizes a value to longer-term antibiotic treatment are driven out of business by this state action, patients will have nowhere to turn when the IDSA Guidelines fail to work.

Senate Bill S5520-B and Assembly Bill A7558-A will protect patients’ rights to work with the physicians of their choice to receive the treatment of their choice.  These bills also would allow practitioners to act in the best interest of the patient without fear of punishment from the professional disciplinary system which is having a chilling effect upon physicians’ ability to treat their patients.  It is important to note that these bills are not intended to protect, nor will they protect, those doctors that act negligently.

To learn more about the context and importance of this legislation, please read the paragraphs below.To write your letter and support this legislation now, please scroll down to the bottom of this page.

Most of the New York physicians who specialize in treating tick borne disease patients and who, at times, prescribe antibiotics beyond the 2-4 weeks recommended by the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), have been investigated by the NYS Dept. of Health’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct (OPMC).  In many cases there have been multiple investigations.

These investigations cost these physicians tens of thousands of dollars for attorneys’ fees and time away from patient care, when in almost all cases there has been no wrongdoing.   As one physician explains it: “Just defending oneself at the ‘investigation’ phase is extremely stressful, financially and emotionally draining.”

It is easy to understand why many physicians are reluctant to treat seriously ill Lyme patients, especially when there is such conflict about diagnosis and treatment.  These are the LYME WARS that have such dire consequences to patients’ access to the treatment of their choice.

In spite of the fact that more than one evidence-based standard of care exists and patients should have the right to participate in the decision making process when it comes to their own care, NYS taxpayer monies are being used to disproportionately investigate one group of medical professionals, thereby threatening patients’ access to the medical providers and treatments of their choice.

Ticks do not discriminate; you, your loved ones, or your child could be next.

Click here to send an email.