Current Legislation

CPhA-Sponsored Legislation

To read the text of the bill, click on the bill. If you have any questions, please contact Michelle Rivas, Executive Vice President, Government Relations at mrivas@cpha.com.

AB 317 (Weber) – Pharmacist Services Coverage

This bill would require a health care service plan and certain disability insurers that offer coverage for a service that is within the scope of practice of a duly licensed pharmacist to pay or reimburse the cost of services performed by a pharmacist at an in-network pharmacy or by a pharmacist at an out-of-network pharmacy if the health care service plan or insurer has an out-of-network pharmacy benefit.

Status: Chaptered (Signed by the Governor on Saturday, October 7, 2023)

AB 913 (Petrie-Norris) – Pharmacy Benefits Managers: Regulation

This bill will:

Creates a licensing structure for PBMs to be licensed by a regulatory body and gives clear authority to that body to enforce the provisions of this law.

• Require PBMs to a file a transparency report with the regulatory body on a yearly basis that includes aggregate costs, fees, amount of rebates, and other financial information.

• When PBMs utilize maximum allowable costs for a particular drug, requires that the PBMs provided each pharmacy information updated every seven days, provide a process for a pharmacy to appeal a determination, and limit use of maximum allowable costs to situations where the drug is not obsolete and is a multiple source drug

• Set limits on the ability of PBMs to require credentials above what is required under federal and state law and retaliate against a pharmacist or pharmacy

• Limit PBMs from patient steering, including limiting them from requiring an enrollee to use only an affiliated pharmacy that is a retail pharmacy, financially inducing transfers to affiliated pharmacies, or restricting the use of a particular network pharmacy

• Prohibit the use of untrue, deceptive, or misleading advertisements, promotions, solicitations, representations, proposals, or offers.

Status: 2-Year Bill. Assembly Business & Professions Committee

SB 339 (Wiener) HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis

This bill would require a health care service plan and health insurer to cover preexposure prophylaxis furnished by a pharmacist, including costs for the pharmacist’s services and related testing. It will also allow a pharmacist to provide the medication beyond the current 60-day limit.

Status: 2-Year Bill. Assembly Inactive File

Priority Legislation

SB 70 (Wiener) – Prescription Drug Coverage

SB 70 strengthens California’s prohibition on non-medical switching, when a health plan forces a patient to switch from a prescribed drug to a different drug for non-medical reasons. This bill states that the prohibition also applies when a provider prescribes a new dose or dosage form for the same drug to improve its efficacy. By expanding this coverage and these protections, SB 70 strengthens patient stability.

Sponsor: Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation
Position: Support
Status: Held in Assembly Appropriations Committee

SB 524 (Cabarello) – Pharmacy Practice: Test-to-Treat

SB 524 will expand access to critical health care services for Californians by allowing pharmacists to directly administer treatment to patients for the following conditions: SARS-CoV-2, influenza, streptococcal pharyngitis, and conjunctivitis.

Sponsor: California Community Pharmacy Coalition
Position: Support
Status: Held in Senate Appropriations Committee

SB 786 (Portantino) – Prescription Drug Pricing

This bill is intended to address the discriminatory practice of some PBMs that reimburse 340B covered entities less in payment for provider’s pharmacy services than they reimburse non-safety net pharmacies.

Sponsor: AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Position: Support
Status: To Governor

SB 873 (Bradford) – Prescription Drugs: Cost Sharing

This bill, would require an enrollee’s or insured’s defined cost sharing for each prescription drug to be calculated at the point of sale based on a price that is reduced by an amount equal to 90% of all rebates received, or to be received, in connection with the dispensing or administration of the drug. The bill would require a health care service plan or health insurer to, among other things, pass through to each enrollee or insured at the point of sale a good faith estimate of the enrollee’s or insured’s decrease in cost sharing.

The bill would require a health care service plan or health insurer to calculate an enrollee’s or insured’s defined cost sharing and provide that information to the dispensing pharmacy, as specified.

Sponsors: California Access Coalition, Patient Pocket Protector Coalition, Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition
Position: Support
Status: Held in Assembly Appropriations Committee

AB 602 (Pellerin) – California State Board of Pharmacy: Emergency Refills: Report

This bill would require the Board of Pharmacy, on or before February 28, 2025, to submit a report to the legislature regarding the total number of times a pharmacist refilled a prescription for a dangerous drug or device without the prescriber’s authorization.

This bill would require the report to also include total number of complaints submitted by consumers alleging that a pharmacist failed to refill a prescription for a dangerous drug or device because the prescriber was unavailable to authorize the refill and would require the board to make a reasonable effort to determine how many of these complaints resulted from pharmacist’s failure to refill a prescription due to a lack of understanding of the full authority vested in the pharmacist under existing law.

This bill would require the board to take reasonable steps to ensure that all pharmacists are fully aware of their authority to refill a prescription of a dangerous drug or device when the prescriber is unavailable.

Sponsor: Author
Position: Oppose Unless Amended
Status: Gutted/amended in the Senate. This is no longer a pharmacy related bill

AB 647 (Holden), Sponsor: United Food and Commercial Workers

AB 647 prevents mass layoffs of trained and skilled grocery store and pharmacy workers and ensures a consistency in food safety and pharmaceutical knowledge among communities by strengthening statewide grocery worker retention and adopting grocery worker recall and rehiring laws. This bill will strengthen the existing California Grocery Worker Retention Law.

Sponsor: United Food and Commercial Workers
Position: Support
Status: To Governor

AB 663 (Haney) – Pharmacy: Mobile Units

AB 663 would allow county-operated mobile pharmacies to provide medications for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) treatment.

Sponsor: City and County of San Francisco
Position: Support
Status: In Senate – To Governor

AB 815 (Wood) – Health Care Coverage: Provider Credentials

This bill would require the California Health and Human Services Agency to create and maintain a provider credentialing board, with specified membership, to certify private and public entities for purposes of credentialing physicians and surgeons and other health care providers in lieu of a health care service plan’s or health insurer’s credentialing process. The bill would require the board to convene by July 1, 2024, develop criteria for the certification of public and private credentialing entities by January 1, 2025, and develop an application process for certification by July 1, 2025.

This bill would require a health care service plan or health insurer, or its delegated entity, to accept a valid credential from a board-certified entity without imposing additional criteria requirements and to pay a fee to a board-certified entity based on the number of contracted providers credentialed through the board-certified entity.

Sponsor: Author
Position: Support
Status: 2-Year Bill. Senate Health Committee

AB 874 (Weber) – Health Care Coverage: Out-of-Pocket Expenses

This bill will ban the use of copay accumulator programs. The bill will require health insurance plans and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to apply any amount paid by the insured through copay assistance to the patient’s deductible or out-of-pocket maximum.

Sponsors: Hemophilia Council of California (HCC); California Rheumatology Alliance (CRA); Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute (CFRI); and, ALS Association
Position: Support
Status: Assembly Health Committee – Hearing Postponed by Committee

AB 948 (Berman) – Prescription Drugs

Since 2017, Californians have been protected from rising prescription drug costs with a $250 co-pay cap for their medication, but that consumer protection is set to expire next year without legislative action. AB 948 would make permanent the existing $250 co-pay cap for a 30-day prescription drug supply, ensuring consumers can continue counting on their monthly prescription drug costs staying within reach.

Sponsors: Health Access California; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO; California Chronic Care Coalition; National Multiple Sclerosis Society; and, Western Center on Law and Poverty
Position: Support
Status: To Governor

AB 1092 (Wood) – Health Care service Plans: Consolidation

This bill would require a health plan that intends to acquire or obtain control of an entity through a change of governance or control of a material amount of assets of that entity to give notice to, and secure prior approval from, the director of the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).

Sponsor: Author
Position: Support
Status: Held in Senate Appropriations Committee

AB 1286 (Haney) – Pharmacy

This legislation makes a number of changes to pharmacy law including:

• Establishes a mandatory reporting of medication errors

• Establishes worksite changes including a minimum staffing floor

• Expands unprofessional conduct

• Expands authority for pharmacy technicians to administer vaccines and other specified functions

• Surgical clinic provisions

Sponsor: Board of Pharmacy
Position: Support
Status: Signed by the Governor on Sunday, October 8, 2023

AB 1341 (Berman) Public health: COVID-19: Testing and Dispensing Sites: Oral Therapeutics

This bill, until January 1, 2025, would authorize a pharmacist to furnish COVID-19 oral therapeutics, as defined, following a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as specified.

Sponsor: Author
Position: Support
Status: To Governor

AB 1557 (Flora) – Pharmacy: Electronic Prescriptions

Authorizes a pharmacist located and licensed in the state to, on behalf of a licensed hospital, from a location outside of the hospital, verify medication chart orders for appropriateness.

Sponsor: Board of Pharmacy
Position: Support
Status: Approved by Governor September 01, 2023

AB 1619 (Dixon) – Prescription Drug Warning Label for Cannabis Interaction

This bill would require a pharmacy or healing arts licensee that dispenses a prescription drug to a patient for outpatient use that has major or moderate interactions with cannabis or cannabidiol products.

Sponsor: Author
Position: Oppose/Amended: Place mandate on sellers of cannabis or cannabidiol sellers to post warnings of potential interaction
Status: Assembly Business & Professions – 2-Year Bill