Your leadership through the WSMA House of Delegates helps guide our advocacy and build awareness of important issues impacting patients and the house of medicine. The WSMA’s Government Affairs and Policy Department is always on the lookout for opportunities to advance policies-both those have been recently passed, as well as established WSMA policy.
Policy resolutions are voted on each year at the Annual Meeting of the WSMA House of Delegates, and as we approach the Aug. 9 deadline for resolutions to be published in the delegate handbook ahead of the 2025 Annual Meeting, we’re looking back at how WSMA policies helped shape our advocacy during the 2025 legislative session.
The WSMA has numerous policies on the books in support of patient access to reproductive health care, including protections for physicians, physician assistants, and other health care professionals providing these services (Resolution C-13 from 2022). Guided by these policies, the WSMA supported Senate Bill 5632, legislation to strengthen our state’s “shield law,” which provides legal protections for patients and health care practitioners related to the delivery of reproductive and gender-affirming care.
Aligned with policy supporting access to and coverage for contraception (Resolution C-1 from 2024), the WSMA worked in coalition to support Senate Bill 5498 to ensure carriers are required to reimburse for a 12-month supply of contraceptives rather than just refills.
At the direction of House of Delegates policy addressing physician burnout (Resolution B-10 from 2023), the WSMA introduced House Bill 1718 in partnership with the Washington Chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to ensure confidentiality protections for physician well-being programs, an important resource for physician and physician assistant career fatigue and workforce retention, and secured its unanimous passage into law.
A longstanding priority of the WSMA and supported by House of Delegates policy (Resolution B-16 from 2022), our organization worked with public health advocates to secure passage of House Bill 1531 to ensure community responses to communicable diseases are guided by the best available science, including vaccines.
Policy from the 2024 House of Delegates (Resolution B-8) recognizing the importance of modernizing our state’s recycling system to be more sustainable led to our support of Senate Bill 5284, which expands recycling opportunities for Washingtonians and incentivizes more sustainable options for the producers of packaging to reduce environmental impacts.
Adoption of policy in support of neonatal abstinence syndrome treatment and management programs (Resolution C-9 from 2022) corresponds with a $2 million investment in the state budget for the operations of a pilot program providing these services to infants with prenatal substance exposure.
Based on policy directing the WSMA to advocate for increased investment in primary care (Resolution C-16 from 2023), we worked with the Washington Academy of Family Physicians in support of Senate Bill 5084 to ensure the state is making progress toward its primary care investment goals by authorizing the insurance commissioner to require carriers to annually report on their primary care expenditures.
A perennial priority of the WSMA, the physician community successfully worked to defeat all scope bills we opposed during the 2025 session-including proposals from naturopaths, pharmacists, and psychologists-pursuant to our policy promoting patient safety by ensuring that practitioners have adequate education and training (Resolution A-19 from 2020).
In line with WSMA policy supporting allowance for recognition of qualitative distinctions in education and training between physicians and other practitioners in reimbursement from insurance carriers (Resolution 16 from 1989), we successfully worked to defeat House Bill 1430, legislation mandating advanced practice registered nurses and physician assistants be paid at the same rate as physicians.
Policies were adopted at the 2024 House of Delegates recognizing the health care sector’s contributions to climate impacts (Resolution B-4 and Resolution C-10), which informed WSMA’s advocacy in support of Senate Bill 5236. Among other provisions, this legislation would have provided guidance on the use of anesthesia gases in medical settings while maintaining clinical judgement. The bill did not pass but will be reintroduced in the 2026 session.
A topic of discussion at the House of Delegates for many years, definitive policy passed directing WSMA’s support for a ban on noncompetition clauses in employment contracts for physicians (Resolution C-10 from 2024). Accordingly, the WSMA advocated on behalf of House Bill 1155 to broadly prohibit noncompetition agreements in the state. This is another bill that did not pass but will be reintroduced in the 2026 session.
Do you have an idea for a policy that you’d like the WSMA House of Delegates to adopt? Learn more about the process on the WSMA website or email WSMA’s policy department at policy@wsma.org.