§ 214-a.Action for medical, dental or podiatric malpractice to be commenced within two years and six months; exceptions.

CPLR 214-a sets the baseline deadline for medical, dental, and podiatric malpractice claims at two years and six months from the act, omission, or failure complained of. Where continuous treatment for the same illness, injury, or condition follows that act, the clock instead runs from the date of the last such treatment. That continuous-treatment rule keeps a patient from having to interrupt an ongoing course of care just to preserve a legal claim, though it doesn't extend to examinations a patient requests solely to check on their own condition.

Two built-in exceptions soften the general rule further. Where the claim rests on a foreign object left in the patient's body, the action may instead be brought within one year of discovering the object, or of when it reasonably should have been discovered, whichever is earlier — though the section narrows what counts as a foreign object, excluding chemical compounds, fixation devices, and prosthetic aids or devices, so a retained sponge or instrument qualifies but a failing hip implant does not.

A second exception, added in 2018 and often called Lavern's Law, addresses the negligent failure to diagnose cancer or a malignant tumor. There, the action may be brought within two years and six months of the later of two dates: when the patient knew or reasonably should have known both of the alleged negligent act and that it caused injury, capped at seven years from that act; or the date of the last continuous treatment for the condition. The extension responds to a real gap in the ordinary rule — a missed cancer diagnosis often causes no apparent harm until the disease progresses well past the original visit, long after a fixed two-and-a-half-year clock from the appointment itself would have run out.

CPLR 214-a is the exclusive path for these claims. CPLR 214-c's general toxic-exposure discovery rule expressly excludes medical and dental malpractice, channeling those claims back here, and CPLR 214(6) confirms the point by carving out malpractice other than medical, dental, or podiatric malpractice from its own three-year period. CPLR 208's tolling provisions for infancy and other disabilities can still extend the deadlines set here.