Divorce for Physicians and Healthcare Professionals in Buffalo, NY

Your medical license is not marital property

Before 2016, a New York spouse could claim a share of the value of a professional license earned during the marriage. The Legislature ended that rule. For divorces started since late January 2016, when a 2015 amendment took effect, the court "shall not consider as marital property subject to distribution the value of a spouse's enhanced earning capacity arising from a license, degree, celebrity goodwill, or career enhancement" (DRL §236(B)(5)(d)(7)).

The same paragraph keeps one door open. When the court divides everything else, it "shall consider the direct or indirect contributions to the development during the marriage of the enhanced earning capacity of the other spouse." A spouse who paid the rent through medical school, or ran the household through residency, can have that counted when the house, the savings and the retirement accounts are divided.

Your income is treated differently from your license. The salary your training produces still drives child support and maintenance, which is where most physician divorces are actually decided.

What happens to a medical or dental practice

A practice you own is a business. The marital part of its value is divided like any other business interest, under the equitable distribution factors in DRL §236(B)(5)(d). Three things make a practice harder to value than most businesses.

• Ownership is restricted. New York lets only licensed professionals hold shares in a professional corporation (Business Corporation Law §1507), and Limited Liability Company Law §1207 sets the same rule for a PLLC. A spouse who is not a physician will not end up owning part of your practice. The court values the marital share and pays it out through a buyout, an offset against other assets, or a distributive award (DRL §236(B)(5)(e)).
• Goodwill is disputed. Part of a practice's value comes from its patient base, location, payer contracts and staff. Part of it is tied to you. How that value is split is often the largest single argument in a practice valuation, and qualified valuators disagree about it.
• Owner pay has to be adjusted. Physician-owners often take compensation in ways that make the practice look more or less profitable than it is. A proper valuation resets owner pay to a market level before valuing what remains.

If you started the practice before the marriage, the value you brought in is separate property. Growth during the marriage stays separate "except to the extent that such appreciation is due in part to the contributions or efforts of the other spouse" (DRL §236(B)(1)(d)(3)). Records of who did what, and when, matter here.

The valuation date is set by the court and "may be anytime from the date of commencement of the action to the date of trial" (DRL §236(B)(4)(b)). Courts often value an active asset, like a practice you run, closer to the filing date, and passive assets closer to trial. The judge has discretion.

One more trap: the same practice income can show up twice, once to value the practice and again to set maintenance. The valuation and the support analysis should be built together so that overlap is dealt with directly. Our guide to how businesses are valued in a New York divorce covers the valuation methods, and the page on divorcing a business co-owner covers buyouts when both spouses work in the practice.

Employed physicians: reading the compensation plan

Many physicians now work for a hospital, a health system or a large group instead of their own practice. Then the case turns less on valuing a business and more on reading your employment agreement and compensation plan line by line.

• Production pay. Salaries tied to wRVUs or collections move from year to year. One year can mislead in either direction, so expect both sides to look at several years of W-2s and productivity reports.
• Bonuses and incentives. Quality bonuses, sign-on bonuses, retention bonuses with repayment clauses and loan-repayment benefits each raise the same questions: when was it earned, and is it property, income, or both?
• Deferred compensation. Nonprofit hospitals often use 403(b) and 457(b) plans, sometimes alongside 457(f) or other nonqualified arrangements. A 403(b) is generally divided with a qualified domestic relations order. A 457(b) at a tax-exempt employer follows its own plan document: federal tax law allows it to pay a former spouse under a domestic relations order (IRC §414(p)(11)), but not every plan does. Other nonqualified plans, such as 457(f) arrangements, also follow their own terms. When a plan cannot pay a former spouse directly, the settlement offsets it with other assets.
• Pensions. Clinicians at public hospitals may be in a state retirement system pension. The marital share is usually figured with the Majauskas formula: 50% × (months of service from the marriage to the date the divorce was filed ÷ total months of service). The pension division calculator runs the numbers, and the retirement accounts and QDROs page explains the orders.
• Unvested benefits. Deferred compensation earned during the marriage can be marital property even if it has not vested yet.

Child support and maintenance for high earners

Child support under the CSSA applies a fixed percentage to combined parental income: 17% for one child, 25% for two, 29% for three, 31% for four, and no less than 35% for five or more. Those percentages are applied to combined income up to $193,000 (the cap effective March 1, 2026), then split between the parents in proportion to their incomes.

Above $193,000, the court decides how much additional income to count "through consideration of the factors set forth in paragraph (f) of this subdivision and/or the child support percentage" (DRL §240(1-b)(c)(3)). In many physician households, most of the dispute is about income above the cap. The child support calculator shows the capped figure as a starting point.

Post-divorce maintenance runs a formula on the payor's income up to $241,000. When the payor earns more, the court applies the formula to the capped income first and then uses its discretion on the rest, guided by the statutory factors (DRL §236(B)(6)(d)). The maintenance calculator runs the capped formula.

Career changes during the divorce get close attention. Residency to attending, a fellowship year, a move from private practice to employment, or a cut to part-time can all change the numbers. Courts may impute income based on earning history and capacity (DRL §240(1-b)(b)(5)(iv) and (v), along with case law), so a drop in hours right before or during a divorce will be questioned. From the other side, a spouse who put a career on hold to support yours has a statutory maintenance factor in their favor: "the reduced or lost earning capacity of the payee as a result of having forgone or delayed education, training, employment or career opportunities during the marriage" (DRL §236(B)(6)(e)(1)(l)).

Custody when you work call, nights and weekends

New York decides custody on the child's best interests. A demanding schedule is one fact the court weighs among many, and it does not disqualify a parent. What helps is a parenting plan that fits the schedule you actually work:

• a rotation that follows the call calendar, set months ahead once the schedule is published
• a right of first refusal, so the other parent gets the time when you are called in
• clear handoff rules for weekends when a shift runs over
• a backup caregiver both parents agree on

The parenting schedule builder lets you test rotations before you propose one. The child custody page covers how the court decides.

Debt, malpractice coverage and practice obligations

• Education loans. No automatic rule assigns medical school debt to either spouse. It is part of equitable distribution, and when the debt was taken on and who benefited from it both matter.
• Practice loans, leases and personal guarantees. These follow you if you keep the practice, and the settlement should say so plainly.
• Malpractice tail coverage. If the divorce leads you to leave a group or close a practice, a claims-made policy may need tail coverage. It is expensive, and who pays for it belongs in the agreement.

Privacy and patient information

New York restricts access to divorce files. Under DRL §235, only the parties and their lawyers can get copies of the pleadings, testimony and judgment without a court order. The public can get only a certificate of disposition.

Financial discovery of a practice can reach records that contain patient information. Ask for patient identifiers to be redacted, and put sensitive practice records under a confidentiality stipulation or protective order.

If you and your spouse can still talk, divorce mediation keeps the negotiation out of the courtroom entirely. Pieter G. Weinrieb is a 42-hour certified family and divorce mediator, and meetings can be scheduled early, late or by video around clinical hours.

What to gather before your first meeting

• 3 to 5 years of personal tax returns, plus practice returns (Form 1120-S or 1065) and K-1s if you own a practice
• your employment agreement and the current compensation plan
• wRVU or productivity reports and bonus letters, including any repayment terms
• deferred compensation plan documents and recent statements (403(b), 457(b), 457(f), pension)
• shareholder, operating or buy-sell agreements
• malpractice policy declarations
• student loan and practice loan statements

The financial document checklist has the full list, and the net worth statement is the form the court will require.

Dentists, nurses and other clinicians

The same rules apply to dentists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, CRNAs, pharmacists, nurses and therapists. For hourly and shift-based clinicians, overtime, shift differentials and per-diem work are usually the income questions that matter most, along with public pension division for anyone employed by a public hospital. When the estate is larger, our high-net-worth divorce page covers investment accounts, real estate and hidden-asset work in more depth.

Frequently Asked Questions