It was an exciting week leading up to Friday’s cutoff for bills to be voted out of their original policy committee. (Cutoff calendar is here.) To make it easy, we’ve listed all of the major bills we’ve been tracking. This is just a partial list; WSHA/AWPHD staff have reviewed more than 300 bills thus far.
Bills that have not moved out of their committee are most likely dead for the session, but nothing is really dead until session is adjourned. Components of “dead” bills can be added to other bills that are still “alive,” and bills that are necessary to implement the budget are exempt from cutoffs. We will be very carefully reading amendments as bills continue to move.
Below is the status of WSHA/AWPHD’s top priority bills that are still alive. Once the cutoff for bills to move from their original house has passed, we will update you about bills that have died. We have successfully opposed a number of important bills that are not moving forward.
Bills WSHA supports
| Bill number | Short description |
| ESHB 1713 | Integrating the treatment systems for mental health and chemical dependency. |
| HB 2080 | Concerning fingerprint-based background checks for health professionals. |
| HB 2335 | Addressing health care provider credentialing. |
| HB 2350 | Defining the administration of medication by medical assistants. |
| HB 2439 | Increasing access to adequate and appropriate mental health services for children and youth. |
| HB 2450 | Allowing critical access hospitals participating in the Washington rural health access preservation pilot to resume critical access hospital payment and licensure. |
| HB 2452 | Creating the interstate medical licensure compact. |
| HB 2652 | Concerning the maintenance and disclosure of health care declarations. |
| HB 2711 | Increasing the availability of sexual assault nurse examiners. |
| HB 2730 | Concerning the prescription drug monitoring program. |
| SB 6036 | Requiring certain health professionals to provide information on primary place of practice at the time of license renewal. |
| SB 6203 | Updating statutes relating to the practice of pharmacy including the practice of pharmacy in long-term care settings. |
| SB 6322 | Concerning the payment of health services by hospitals for inmates. |
| SB 6336 | Addressing health care provider credentialing. |
| SB 6445 | Clarifying the role of physician assistants in the delivery of mental health services. |
| SB 6494 | Increasing access to adequate and appropriate mental health services for children and youth. |
| SB 6519 | Expanding patient access to health services through telemedicine and establishing a collaborative for the advancement of telemedicine. |
| SB 6558 | Allowing a hospital pharmacy license to include individual practitioner offices and multipracitioner clinics owned and operated by a hospital and ensuring such offices and clinics are inspected according to the level of service provided. |
| SB 6569 | Creating a task force on patient out-of-pocket costs. |
Bills AWPHD supports
| Bill number | Short description |
| HB 2576 | Concerning public records act requests to local agencies. |
| HB 2771/SB 6214 | Concerning public hospital district contracts for material and work. |
| HB 2772/SB 6213 | Concerning job order contracts by public hospital districts. |
Bills AWPHD opposes
| Bill number | Short description |
| SB 6021 | Requiring the voters to ratify the agreement between public hospital district No. 1 of King county and UW Medicine. |
| SB 6312 | Regulating the core legislative powers of elected commissioners of a public hospital district. |
For more information, contact Cassie Sauer. (206/216-2538).
