2024-2025 Legislative Session
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.
CPhA-Sponsored Legislation
SB 41 (Wiener) Pharmacy Benefits Managers
This bill requires that all PBMs be licensed by the Department of Managed Care and disclose basic information regarding their business practices to the licensing entity. In addition, SB 41 enacts other pro-consumer requirements and prohibitions:
- Prohibits steering patients to affiliated pharmacies.
- Prohibits spread pricing.
- Requires that the PBM pass through all negotiated drug rebates to the payers or patients.
- Outlaws PBMs from making any untrue, deceptive, or misleading statements.
- Prohibits PBMs from cutting or reducing the payments they owe pharmacies for pharmacist services through any kind of billing or reconciliation process. This includes cuts related to generic or brand drug rates, fees, or any other combined payment reductions.
- Prohibits a PBM from charging a pharmacy or pharmacist a fee to process a claim electronically.
- Prohibits a PBM from imposing any requirements, conditions, or exclusions that discriminate against a “nonaffiliated pharmacy” in connection with dispensing drugs, including terms or conditions applied to nonaffiliated pharmacies based on their status as nonaffiliated pharmacy, refusing to contract or terminating a contract with a nonaffiliated pharmacy on the basis that the pharmacy is nonaffiliated or for reasons other than those that apply equally to affiliated pharmacies
- Denying a nonaffiliated contract pharmacy the opportunity to participate in a PBM network with preferred participation status if the pharmacy is willing to accept the same terms and conditions that the PBM has established for affiliated pharmacies as a condition of preferred network participation status.
- Prohibits a non-affiliated pharmacy from being reimbursed less for a pharmacist service than the pharmacy benefit manager would reimburse an affiliated pharmacy for the same pharmacist service
Status: Approved by Governor, October 11, 2025
AB 309 (Zbur) – Hypodermic needles and syringes.
As part of the state’s comprehensive strategy to prevent the spread of HIV & viral hepatitis, this bill will allow pharmacists the discretion to furnish sterile syringes and for adults to possess syringes for personal use without a prescription, removing a sunset in a 2020 bill.
Status: Approved by Governor October 13, 2025
2025 Priority Legislation
SB 6 (Ashby) – Controlled substances: xylazine.
This bill proposes adding xylazine to the list of Schedule III controlled substances. It includes an exception for xylazine-containing animal drugs that are not available in California, allowing substances to be used for compounding such drugs under specific conditions. The bill also excludes testing equipment used to detect xylazine from the definition of drug paraphernalia.
Position: Support
Status: Assembly Appropriations Committee
SB 29 (Laird) – Civil actions: decedent’s cause of action.
The bill removes the time limitation on recovering damages for a decedent’s pain, suffering, or disfigurement, making these damages permanently recoverable by the decedent’s representative or successor in interest. It also eliminates related reporting requirements to the Judicial Council.
Position: Oppose Unless Amended
Status: Assembly Inactive File
SB 40 (Wiener) – Health care coverage: insulin.
The legislation addresses the financial challenges faced by individuals with diabetes in California, particularly regarding the high cost of insulin. It acknowledges that insulin is essential for survival for many with diabetes and that the rising prices and copayments create barriers to access. The bill aims to reduce these costs and improve access to necessary treatments.
Key aspects include:
- The bill mandates that health care and disability insurance policies cover essential diabetes management equipment, supplies, and medications, including insulin.
- By January 2026, insurers will be required to cap insulin copayments at $35 per month and eliminate deductibles or other cost-sharing for insulin prescriptions, even in high-deductible plans.
- It prohibits step therapy protocols for insulin and mandates coverage for diabetes management education.
- Insurers and health plans are required to provide coverage without reducing benefits and disclose the services covered in policy documents.
Position: Support
Status: Approved by Governor October 13, 2025
SB 363 (Wiener) – Health care coverage: independent medical review.
The bill mandates that health care service plans and insurers annually report their treatment denials or modifications, categorized by type of care and age, starting June 1, 2026. Regulatory departments must compare these denials to the number of successful independent medical review (IMR) overturns and reversals. If more than half of IMRs in any category result in overturned or reversed denials, the plan or insurer faces administrative penalties, with additional penalties for each excess overturn. Medi-Cal managed care plans are exempt.
The bill also requires the Insurance Commissioner’s annual report to include data on IMR overturns and reversals for health insurers. Additionally, the Center for Data Insights and Innovation must report similar data for health care service plans, with support from the Department of Managed Health Care.
Position: Support
Status: Assembly Appropriations Committee
SB 535 Obesity (Richardson) – Treatment Parity Act.
The Obesity Treatment Parity Act requires health insurance plans issued or renewed after January 1, 2026, to cover behavioral therapy, bariatric surgery, and at least one FDA-approved anti-obesity drug.
Position: Support
Status: Assembly Appropriations Committee
AB 50 (Bonta) – Pharmacists: furnishing contraceptives.
This bill aims to modify provisions in the Business and Professions Code related to pharmacists’ furnishing of contraceptives.
This bill, an urgency measure, authorizes a pharmacist to furnish over-the-counter contraceptives (OTCs) without the standardized procedures or protocols required for prescription-only self-administered hormonal contraceptives.
Position: Support
Status: Approved by Governor, September 26, 2025
AB 280 (Aguiar-Curry) – Health care coverage: provider directories.
The bill strengthens accuracy requirements for health care provider directories maintained by health care service plans and insurers. It mandates annual verification and removal of inaccurate listings, setting increasing accuracy benchmarks from 60% in 2026 to 95% by 2029. Plans and insurers face administrative penalties for noncompliance. They must cover services for enrollees who relied on incorrect directory information and reimburse providers at out-of-network rates while prohibiting extra charges beyond in-network cost-sharing. The bill also requires the timely approval of reinstating removed providers and mandates providing in-network provider details upon request. Additionally, it allows regulatory agencies to establish standardized formats and processes for directory accuracy by 2026.
Position: Support
Status: Senate Inactive File
AB 260 (Aguiar-Curry) – Preserving Mifepristone Access and Reproductive Rights
This proposal removes outdated abortion laws and protects access to medication abortion, like mifepristone. It allows state health officials to regulate these drugs, even if the FDA withdraws approval. It sets new rules for pharmacists, shields clinics from penalties, expands telehealth access for reproductive care, ensures insurance covers abortion pills, and updates prescribing rules for healthcare providers.
Position: Support
Status: Approved by Governor September 26, 2025
The bill allows prescribers to dispense an unused portion of a non-controlled dangerous drug acquired by a hospital pharmacy to an emergency room patient upon discharge. This is permitted if dispensing is necessary to continue the patient’s treatment and meets specified conditions, overriding other laws.
Position: Support
Status: Approved by Governor October 06, 2025
AB 554 (M. González) – Health care coverage: antiretroviral drugs, drug devices, and drug products.
The bill expands protections against prior authorization and step therapy requirements for antiretroviral drugs, drug devices, and drug products used to prevent HIV/AIDS. It prohibits health care service plans (excluding Medi-Cal managed care) and insurers from imposing these restrictions on FDA-approved or CDC-recommended treatments unless at least one therapeutically equivalent version is covered without restrictions. If a specific version is not covered, the plan or insurer must provide it without cost-sharing through an exception request.
The bill mandates coverage of these treatments under outpatient prescription drug benefits, including direct supply to participating providers. It also requires all health plans, including grandfathered ones, to cover these treatments without cost-sharing or utilization review, though application to individual and small group plans is delayed until 2027. Medi-Cal managed care plans are exempt.
Position: Support
Status: Vetoed
AB 577 (Wilson) – Health care coverage: anti-steering
This legislation would prohibit pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and health plans/insurers from enacting policies that would prevent physicians from acquiring and administering or dispensing drugs (such as injections, infusions, and oral medications) in their offices to their patients. The bill would also prohibit these entities from preventing patients from receiving drug treatments, such as chemotherapy or rheumatology infusions, from their physicians.
Position: Support if Amended
Status: Two-year bill.
AB 957 (Ortega) – Cigarette and tobacco products: retail sale: pharmacies.
This bill would prohibit a pharmacy from engaging in the retail sale of cigarettes or tobacco products.
Position: Support
Status: Senate Revenue & Taxation Committee
AB 1366 (Flora) – Reimbursement for pharmacist services
This bill requires Medi-Cal to reimburse pharmacists at the same rate as physicians, including for Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services, and limits MTM payments to eligible providers tied to specialty drugs. It also mandates health plans and insurers to reimburse enrolled pharmacists for services if similar services by other licensed providers are covered. Violations by health plans could constitute a crime, creating a state-mandated local program.
Position: Support
Status: Assembly Health Committee. Dead.
AB 1503 (Business & Professions) – Sunset Review: Board of Pharmacy
This is the Board of Pharmacy Sunset Review bill that makes several changes to pharmacy law, including:
- Extends Board operations to January 1, 2030.
- Requires the Board to establish and appoint a Pharmacy Technician Advisory Committee to advise and make recommendations to the Board on matters relating to pharmacy technicians.
- Authorizes pharmacy technician trainees to receive their training from an accredited employer-based pharmacy technician training program.
- Extends the Board’s authority to bring an action for increased fines against certain pharmacies for repeat violations of the Pharmacy Law to allow for similar actions to be brought against mail order pharmacies.
- Requires all Board-licensed to biannually complete a specified self-assessment process on a form approved by the Board, developed in consultation with stakeholders.
- Defines “accepted standard of care” as the degree of care a prudent and reasonable pharmacist licensed pursuant to the Pharmacy Law, with similar education, training, experience, resources, and setting, would exercise in a similar situation.
- Authorizes pharmacists to furnish over-the-counter medications upon request. Authorizes a pharmacist to furnish Federal Drug Administration (FDA)- approved or authorized medicines as part of preventative health care services that do not require a diagnosis, including emergency contraception, contraception, smoking cessation, travel medications, and anti-viral or anti-infective medications.
- Authorizes a pharmacist to broadly order and interpret tests.
- Authorizes a pharmacist to initiate and administer any FDA-approved or -authorized immunization for persons three years of age and older consistent with best evidence-based practice.
- Continues the authority for a pharmacist to authorize a pharmacist to furnish COVID-19 oral therapeutics following a positive test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19
- Requires an appropriate examination of a patient before the dispensing or furnishing of a dangerous drug or dangerous device on the internet for delivery to that patient, rather than a “good faith examination.”
- Requires pharmacies to maintain records of policies and procedures related to pharmacy personnel and pharmacy operations in a readily retrievable format that, if maintained electronically, provide an audit trail for revisions and updates of each record, in addition to existing record-keeping requirements.
- Clarifies the prohibition against a person receiving a license from the Board who shares a community or other financial interest with a person authorized to prescribe or write a prescription.
- Beginning July 1, 2026, requires pharmacies located in another state (nonresident pharmacies) to identify a California-licensed pharmacist designated as the pharmacist-in-charge (PIC) employed and working at the nonresident pharmacy. Authorizes the Board to inspect and take action against a nonresident pharmacy on grounds that would not be grounds for action in the state in which the nonresident pharmacy is permanently located.
- Authorizes a PIC to make the decision regarding how many pharmacy technicians may be working in a pharmacy and allows for up to three pharmacy technicians to be working in the pharmacy for each pharmacist working in the pharmacy.
- Specifies that pharmacies are only required to report medication errors related to prescriptions dispensed to California residents.
- Requires a chain community pharmacy to post, in a prominent place for pharmacy personnel, a notice that provides information on how to file a complaint with the Board.
- Authorizes a pharmacy technician to perform compounding activities and administer vaccinations outside a licensed pharmacy under supervision.
- Requires a pharmacist at a hospital pharmacy to obtain an accurate medication profile or list for each high-risk patient upon discharge in addition to admission.
- Revises the process for restoring a retired license to active status.
- Authorizes the Board to deny an application for licensure if the applicant has been convicted of a crime involving fraud in violation of state or federal laws related to health care or a crime involving financial identify theft.
- Changes the title “advanced practice pharmacist” to “advanced pharmacist practitioner.”
- Revises Board authority to bring an action for increased fines against a chain community pharmacy for violations of the Pharmacy Law by allowing the Board to demonstrate that the violation was expressly encouraged by any owner or manager.
- Defines “medically underserved area” as a location without a pharmacy providing in-person patient care within 50 road miles and waives application and renewal fees for pharmacies opening or maintaining operations in these areas.
- Clarifies Board Authority: Confirms that the Board of Pharmacy has sole authority to interpret, enforce, and discipline under the Pharmacy Law, prohibiting other state agencies from defining or implementing pharmacy-related procedures without authorization.
Position: Support
Status: Approved by Governor, October 01, 2025
