The NYU Langone Health 403(b): 13 common questions and answers for NYU Langone Health Physicians

1)     What is the NYU Langone Health 403(b) Match?

To our knowledge NYU Langone Health doesn't have a 403(b) match, rather the employer puts in between 6% and 10% of your of your salary. You should not that the IRS only allows a certain amount of compensation to be considered for your 403(b) - the 401(a)(17) limit which is $360,000 in 2026. So 10% of $360,000 is $36,000 and even if you earned $500,000 your employer contirbutions may be limited to $36,000 instead of $50,000 because of this rule.

Chart of NYULH contributions and waiting periods until you receive

Employee Category	NYULH Contribution % of your salary (up to the 401(a)17 limit [$360,000 in 2026])	Waiting Period (how long you have to work consecutively at NYULH to receive an employer contribution
Upper-level management	10%	1 year
Certain physicians & administrators	10%	1 year
Entry- to mid-level management	8%	1 year
Physician assistants	8%	1 year
Exempt professional & management staff	6%	1 year
Non-exempt technical, clerical, office, service & ancillary staff	6%	1 year
Professional research staff, Grades A–E	6%	1 year
Local One Security Officers Union	6%	1 year
Brotherhood of Security Personnel, Officers & Guards	Per CBA	2 years

2)    What is the NYU Langone Health 403(b) vesting schedule?

You are immediately vested in your contributions to the NYU Langone Health 403(b) and the investment gains on those.

For the NYULH employer contributions here is the vesting schedule to the best of our knowledge as of 9/30/26

Years of Vesting Service on NYULH Employer Contributions	Vesting Percentage
Less than 2 years	0%
2 years	25%
3 years	50%
4 years	75%
5 years or more	100%

Years of Vesting Service Vesting Percentage

3)    What are the withdrawal rules for the NYU Langone 403(b)?

In general withdrawals can't be made before age 59.5 but there are a few exceptions that you can check with your plan administrator and TIAA CREF.

Reach age 59½,

Are permanently disabled as evidenced by a Social Security award letter, or

Suffer a serious financial hardship.* (Serious financial hardship will be determined by the Plan Administrator of the

Plan in accordance with current IRS regulations).

*Hardship withdrawals made prior to age 59½ are subject to the 10% penalty tax for certain early withdrawals.

4)    Do I get a pension, or is retirement entirely through the 403(b)?

We believe that NYU Langone Health froze it's pensions around the year 2000. This means that if you were employed by NYU Langone before the year 2000, you may have a pension.

However, we believe that if you joined NYU Langone Health after the year 2000, you likely only have a 403(b). However, you can always check and confirm this with human resources or the benefits people at NYU Langone Health.

5)    Exactly which NYU Langone employer and plan cover me as a physician?

The 403(b) plan covers employees of NYU Langone Health and NYU Langone Hospitals to the best of our knowledge.

6)    What employer contribution do I receive—and do I have to contribute to get it?

For physicians the employer contributions are typically about 10% of your salary up to the 401(a)(17) limit and you don't have to contribute anything to get this employer contribution to the best of our knowledge.

7)    When do employer contributions actually begin?

Employer contributions typically begin after 1 year of full time work to our knowledge

8)     If I leave NYU before five years, what do I lose

If you leave in before year 2 you lose your employer contributions, which can be substantial. It is usually best to try to make it to year 4 or 5 if possible to fully vest or nearly fully vest in the employer contributions.

9)    Does my full physician pay count toward the employer contribution?

To the best of our knowledge your full physician pay may count towards calculating the employer contribution. Of course, you should confirm this with human resources at NYU Langone Health and they are the authority on this topic. But typically you'll full pay is considered up to the 401(a)(17) limit which is $360,000 in 2026, to our knowledge.

10) Why am I seeing a 4% 403(b) deduction—did I enroll?

To our knowledge NYU Langone Health employees are automatically enrolled in 403(b) contributions although they can usually opt out in the first month of employment or change their contribution levels at any time going forward, to the best of our knowledge.

11) Should I use pretax, Roth, or both—and what happens if I have another plan?

While this is a decision you should consider carefully, and potentially speak to your own fiduciary financial advisor, what we often counsel our clients is that if your income is likely to be above $150,000 in retirement the Roth option may be seriously worth considering. If your income is expected to be below $150,000 in retirement then the pre-tax option may be more compelling. A financial advisor can help you project what your retirement income will actually be based of a variety of factors that tend to lead to different levels of retirement income in their experience.

If you have worked at more than one employer in the current calendar year and/or participated in more than one plan it is important to know that you share your elective deferral limits across plans. It is easy to over contribute to your retirement plans when you work at more than one employer in a given year and are a good saver and we've had to deal with helping clients unwind an over contribution.

As someone who has assisted with taxes with clients who have made this mistake it is a pain to fix - so it is best to avoid in the first place, if possible.

12) Can I access, roll over, or move the account when I retire or leave?

The NYU Langone Health 403(b) Plan gives eligible participants several options for managing retirement assets, including the ability to roll eligible retirement funds into the plan and, in certain circumstances, transfer assets from designated NYU-related retirement plans.

Why does this matter?

Consolidating retirement assets can sometimes make it easier to manage your investments and keep track of your retirement savings. However, whether moving an account into the NYU Langone 403(b) makes sense depends on the type of account, the investments available, fees, tax considerations and your individual financial situation.

The plan also offers a Roth in-plan conversion feature. This allows certain existing plan assets to be converted to Roth status while remaining within the plan. The important consideration is that the amount converted generally becomes taxable income in the year of the conversion. Once completed, the conversion cannot be reversed.

It is also important to distinguish a rollover or conversion from other ways of accessing your retirement account. Distributions, loans, hardship withdrawals, payments after leaving NYU Langone, and beneficiary provisions each have their own rules and tax considerations. The fact that a plan permits a particular type of transaction does not necessarily mean that transaction is appropriate for every participant.

For this reason, understanding what the NYU Langone Health 403(b) permits is only the first step. Before moving retirement assets or making a Roth conversion, it is worth considering how the decision fits into your broader retirement, tax and investment strategy.

13) Are the investments appropriate, and who is responsible for them?

A 403(b) can be an important retirement benefit, but participating in the plan does not eliminate investment risk. Once money is invested, employees remain exposed to market fluctuations and the risks associated with how their retirement savings are allocated.

That makes the investment-selection decision an important part of participating in the plan. Employees may choose investments from the options available through the 403(b), rely on the plan's default investment option, or seek independent financial advice when deciding how their retirement savings should be invested.

Why does this matter?

The investment choices made inside a retirement account can affect both the potential growth of the account and the amount of investment risk an employee takes along the way. The appropriate approach can depend on factors such as an employee's age, retirement timeline, other investments, financial goals and tolerance for market fluctuations.

The key point is that the 403(b) provides the investment platform, but the employee is ultimately responsible for understanding the investment choices and risks associated with their account.

TIAA-CREF is an excellent insurance firm and they are one of the best providers of 403(b)s in the entire United States in our view. The 403(b) structure itself is quite limiting because you can only buy mutual funds and insurance products in it by law, (unlike a for profit 401(k) where you can buy a lot more investment options), but within this limitations set forth in the law - TIAA-CREF really has some of the best retirement plans out there for not-for-profit employers. But it is possible to make the most of your TIAA-CREF and we've never been a big fan of exclusive use the target date funds for customers who expect to have more than $100k-$150k in retirement savings by the time they stop working. We tend to think that other options combined with target date funds or other options alone can often more precisely help clients achieve their goals and customize their portfolio to their actual desires and personalities. In short target target date funds are blunt tools that we don't think of as being quite as effective in many cases but they can get the job done in some ways. We think of it like doing surgery by chain saw - it works and it cuts the skin - but the sew up job is tougher than if you did the incision by scalpel or even better using one of Intuitive Surgical's Da Vinci robots to make super small incisions.

For small accounts (under $100k or $150k or on track to end up that way) we tend to think the target date funds get the job done, but for accounts bigger than $100k or $150k we often encourage our clients to think more broadly beyond the target date fund and actually customize the investments to their needs.

If you are a physician at NYU Langone Health and you are interested in working with a fee only fiduciary advisor you can request a discovery call here.

Disclaimer: The information in this article is written for educational and entertainment purposes only. While we believe that the information in this article is correct as of the time it was written on 9/30/26, we make no warranties as to its accuracy and you should do your own independent research and talk to your own professional advisors before acting on any information you read about in this article. NYU Langone Health is the authority on their own plan and we recommend confirming any information about their plan that you learned about in this article with their benefits or HR people. Information in this article may become outdated over time and you should not assume that we will update it after 9/30/26. You are not a financial advisory client of Daniel Harris nor D.R. Harris & Co. unless you have a signed written agreement with us. If you are interested in becoming a client of D.R. Harris & Co. you can request a call here.