Legislation Impacting the Physician Assistant Board
2025
These bills have been chaptered and have an effective date of January 1, 2026, unless stated otherwise. Detailed bill information may be found by clicking the links in the “Bill” column below.
| Bill | Author, Chapter, Statute Year | Statutory Reference | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| AB 82 Health care: legally protected health care activity |
Ward, Chapter 679, Statutes of 2025 | Health and Safety Code section 11165 | Among other things, this bill prohibits prescribers from reporting prescriptions for testosterone or mifepristone to CURES, the California Department of Justice, or a contracted prescription data processing vendor. |
| AB 260 Sexual and reproductive health care |
Aguiar-Curry, Chapter 136, Statutes of 2025 | Business and Professions Code sections 601, 687, 850.3, 2519, 2761, 2878, 4076, 4318, and 4521 | This urgency bill prohibits healing arts practitioners from
being subject to civil, criminal, or disciplinary action solely on the basis that the practitioner
prescribed a drug used for medication abortion. It allows pharmacists to dispense medication
abortion drugs without the name of the patient, prescriber, or the name and address of the pharmacy
on the prescription label. This bill also contains provisions that protect the use of medication
abortion that affect the Department of Public Health and the Department of Health Care
Services. This was an urgency bill that went into effect immediately upon signing, on September 26, 2025. |
| AB 447 Emergency room patient prescriptions |
Gonzalez, Chapter 363, Statutes of 2025 | Business and Professions Code section 4068 and 4427.2 | This bill allows a prescriber to dispense an unused quantity of a dangerous drug acquired by a hospital pharmacy to an emergency room patient when they are discharged, if the drug was administered from single patient use multi-dose packaging and can be self-administered by the patient. This bill also provides that the drug must have been ordered and administered to the emergency room patient and must be necessary for the continued treatment of the patient but may not be a controlled substance. Additionally, this bill adds to the circumstances of when an exempt from licensure automated unit dose system used to provide medication to patients can be utilized. |
| AB 489 Health care professions: deceptive terms or letters: artificial intelligence |
Bonta, Chapter 615, Statutes Of 2025 | Business and Professions Code sections 4999.8 and 4999.9 | The healing arts practice acts often prohibit the use of
specific terms, letters, or phrases by unlicensed individuals that misleadingly indicate or imply
the individual is licensed. For instance, the use of “Dr.,” “M.D.,” or “doctor” is generally
prohibited unless the person holds a physician's and surgeon's certificate, because the terms
indicate or imply the person is licensed to practice medicine. (Bus. & Prof. Code, section
2054.) This bill prohibits the use of the specific terms, letters, or phrases that are reserved for licensees in the healing arts practice acts in the advertising or functionality of artificial intelligence systems. Healing arts boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs may pursue an injunction, restraining order, or other remedy, such as an administrative citation, against a person or entity who develops or deploys such a system. |
| AB 1037 Public health: substance use disorder |
Elhawary, Chapter 569, Statutes of 2025 | Civil Code section 1714.22 Health and Safety Code sections 1797.197, 11372.7, 11834.01, 11834.026, 11834.26, 11999, and 11999.1, and repeal 11999.2 | This bill eliminates specified requirements, such as mandatory training, for any person to legally possess and use opioid antagonists and shields individuals from civil or criminal penalties if they administer opioid antagonists in good faith. This bill also explicitly protects licensed health care providers who prescribe opioid antagonists from professional review and criminal prosecution. Additionally, this bill protects those providers from liability in civil actions related to any person who administers the opioid antagonist in good faith and not for compensation. |
| AB 1501 Physician assistants and podiatrists |
Berman, Chapter 194, Statutes of 2025 | Business and Professions Code sections 3502.35, 3504, 3504.2, 3509, 3513, 3514.1, 3516, 3521.1, 3521.2, 3523, and 3537.45 | This is the sunset bill for the Physician Assistant Board and extends the Board's sunset date until January 1, 2030. This bill includes various necessary updates to reflect that Board does not approve PA training programs. This bill increases the number of physician assistants whom a physician and surgeon may supervise at any one time to 8. This bill establishes a $60 application fee, a $250 initial license fee, and a $300 biennial license renewal fee. The bill authorizes the Board to increase the application fee to not more than $80, the initial license fee to not more than $500, and the biennial license renewal fee to not more than $500. The bill expresses the Legislature's intent to review how practice agreements are utilized in other states, evaluating their potential benefits or detriments to patient care, workforce efficiency, and regulatory oversight. The bill also makes several other technical changes identified in the Board's sunset report. |
| SB 497 Legally protected health care activity |
Wiener, Chapter 764, Statutes of 2025 | Civil Code section 56.109 Health and Safety Code section 11165 Penal Code section 1326 | This bill, among other provisions, prohibits healing arts practitioners from cooperating with any inquiry or investigation by individuals or departments from another state or a federal law enforcement agency, to the extent permitted by federal law, that would identify an individual seeking or obtaining gender-affirming health care that is lawful in California. It also prohibits state or local agencies from knowingly providing CURES data or knowingly assisting in an interstate investigation or proceeding seeking to impose civil, criminal, or disciplinary liability based on another state's laws for the provision or receipt of legally protected health care activity. Individuals who violate these provisions are guilty of a misdemeanor. |