House panel considers adding physician assistants to hospital 'attending' rights as board warns of safety risk

Legislative counsel Jen Carvey walked the House Healthcare Committee through a strike‑all amendment to S3 on Thursday that would insert the term “physician assistant” alongside physicians and advanced practice registered nurses in the patient bill of rights and hospital license requirements.

The proposed language would let a patient’s attending be a physician, physician assistant or APRN, require the attending to coordinate care and to sign professional case records, and make physician assistants subject to disciplinary action under the same complaint processes as physicians and APRNs.

Committee members read into the record a unanimous statement from the Board of Medical Practice opposing a statutory shift that would allow advanced practice providers to serve as inpatient attendings without additional safeguards. The board said it is “opposed to transitioning attending coverage for inpatients to advanced practice providers” and recommended treating physician assistants and APRNs the same and imposing minimum inpatient experience (it cited a transition‑to‑practice policy of 2,400 hours and 24 months for initial licensure).

Several legislators said hospitals report the practice already occurs in some facilities and urged the committee to hear hospital officials explain their protocols, supervision, and training before the committee considers codifying current practice. Members also asked staff to confirm whether changing statutory language would impose new costs or alter hospital protocols.

Carvey said the amendment is largely technical — adding physician assistants in the places the bill already names APRNs — and suggested an updated title such as “advanced practice providers” to reflect the change. The committee declined to vote and asked staff to invite hospitals to testify about current practice and safety protocols.

The Board of Medical Practice’s statement and the hospitals’ competing accounts set up a procedural choice: the committee can codify what some hospitals say is existing practice, or it can require additional training or supervision standards before granting statutory parity for attendings.

The committee recessed for a short break and will schedule hospital testimony and further markup.