Current Legislative Bills

MACEP LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
September 2025

Workplace Violence
H.2655/S.1718, An Act Requiring Health Care Employers to Develop and Implement Programs to Prevent Workplace Violence  (Lawn/Lovely) is new compromise legislation to end the standoff between the nurses and the hospitals on this issue and hopefully pave the way for passage.
 
This legislation requires Massachusetts to develop and monitor new statewide standards for evaluating and addressing known security risks in hospitals and for hospitals to:

• Implement programs based on these new standards, including employee trainings;
• Develop a written violence prevention plan in cooperation with their employees;
• Deploy an in-house crisis response team to assist employees who are victims of workplace violence;
• Adopt appropriate employment support for victims for follow-up services and legal proceedings related to incidents of workplace violence;
• Initiate regular reporting of all assaults and assaults and batteries to the Department of Public Health (DPH) and local district attorneys; and
• Facilitate robust information-sharing between the healthcare and public safety communities.
• Strengthens the penalties for assault and battery committed against healthcare providers, emergency medical technicians, and ambulance operators and attendants from a misdemeanor to felony.

H.2655 was reported out of Public Safety favorably on 7/24 and is currently pending before House Ways and Means.
S.1718 was reported out favorably on 7/21 and is currently pending before Senate Ways and Means.
 
Emergency Medical Services
H.4120, An Act to Declare Emergency Medical Services an Essential Service (Davis)
would designate emergency medical services (EMS) as an essential service in the Commonwealth and create the EMS Essential Service Fund under the Department of Public Health (DPH) to provide financial support for all types of emergency medical service agencies in the commonwealth.
Public Hearing before the Committee on Public Health on June 25th. Committee extension order until 10/21.
 
S.1513, An Act Establishing a Task Force to Study the Sustainability of Emergency Medical Services (Driscoll) would create a special task force, including a representative of MACEP, to study and make recommendations on the structure, support and delivery of emergency medical services in the Commonwealth. That bill was favorably reported out of Public Health and is currently pending before Senate Ways and Means.
 
Prior Authorization Reform
Legislation to implement prior authorization reform was heard by both the Financial Services and Health Care Financing Committees in mid-July.  H.1136/S.1403, “An Act Improving the Health Insurance Prior Authorization Process” (Decker/Friedman) would put in place comprehensive legislative protections for patients and providers to reduce and streamline prior authorization processes uniformly across all commercial insurance carriers in Massachusetts.  The AAO-HNS and the MSO collaborated on joint testimony supporting the following provisions to reduce administrative burden and promote access to quality, timely care:
•             Prohibit PA for generic medications and medications and treatments that have low denial rates, low variation in utilization, or an evidence-base to treat chronic illness;
•             Require PA to be valid for the duration of treatment or at least 1 year;
•             Require insurers to honor the patient’s PA from another insurer for at least 90 days;
•             Prohibit retrospective denials if care is preauthorized;
•             Establish a 24-hour response time to authorize urgent care;
•             Regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in PA programs, including prohibiting the use of AI as the sole basis for denial of authorization for care, and
•             Require insurers to adopt software to facilitate automated, electronic processing of PA and the Division of Insurance to implement standardized PA form. H.1136 is pending before the Financial Services Committee. S.1403 is in Health Care Financing.
 
T-CPR
H.2510/S.1589, An Act Relative to Improving the Outcomes for Sudden Cardiac Arrest would update the 911 Emergency Response system and help ensure that all 911 call dispatchers are trained and able to coach bystanders to perform CPR. 
Public Health Committee hearing on 6/25/25. H.2510 is extended in Committee until 10/21. S.1589 was favorably reported out and is pending before Senate Ways and Means.
 
CPR in schools
H.556/S.447, S.456, H.572, and H.750 are all intended to ensure that all public high school students in Massachusetts to receive hands-on training in CPR and AED use before graduation.
Public hearing before the Education Committee on 7/21/25. No further action.
 
Opioids
H.2535/S.1551, An Act Establishing a Naloxone Purchase Trust Fund (Schwartz/Keenan) would establish a bulk purchasing fund for naloxone that would enable the state to buy it in bulk and then distribute it directly to hospitals to give to at-risk individuals in the ED, inpatient and labor and delivery areas, without the need to go through insurance.
Public Health Committee hearing on 6/11/25. H.2535 was extended in Committee until 10/9. S.1551 was reported out favorably and is pending before Health Care Financing.
 
H.530/S.382, An Act Requiring Opioid Use Disorder Education (Ciccolo/Keenan) would require all public and private schools to incorporate comprehensive opioid use disorder education into their existing curriculum.
Public Hearing before the Education Committee on 7/21/25. No further action.
 
OPC’s
H.2196/S.1393, An Act Relative to Preventing Overdose Deaths and Increasing Access to Treatment (Decker/Cyr) would allow for the establishment of Overdose Prevention Centers (OPC’s).  Specifically, the bill would define harm reduction programs in Massachusetts statute, and grant regulatory authority to the Department of Public Health. provide for a range of services that include monitoring participants for signs of overdose and intervening to prevent overdose death. The bill requires data collection to better inform legislative and regulatory efforts moving forward. Participants, staff members, property owners and the operator of the center would be protected from civil or criminal penalties. Importantly, this bill is NOT a mandate. It simply creates the statutory framework for comprehensive harm reduction programs to include overdose prevention services with authorization from DPH.
Public hearing before the Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery on 9/15/25.
 
Opposition to Independent Practice for Physician Assistants
H.2371/S.1502, An Act Relative to Removing Barriers to Care for Physician Assistants (Barber/Cyr) would grant PA’s the authority to practice independently, including prescriptive authority and the ordering of tests and therapeutics and remove the Board of Registration in Medicine from the promulgation of regulations to implement the provisions of this act, if signed into law.
Public Health Committee hearing on 7/14/25. No further action.