The Department of Health has released its final report on the pharmacist prescriptive authority sunrise review. The report rejects the proposal offered by the Washington State Pharmacy Association as “…too broad to evaluate if it protects patient safety.” The report does offer recommendations on how to narrow the proposal to meet sunrise criteria. Those recommendations include “…adding some of the limitations similar to Montana’s law to restrict the proposed prescriptive authority to treating conditions that do not require a new diagnosis, are minor and self-limiting, are diagnosed through waived clinical tests, or are emergencies.”
As background, the pharmacy association proposal would have delegated the Legislature’s authority to set a pharmacist scope of practice to the Pharmacy Quality Assurance Commission. That commission, comprised of pharmacists and members of the public, would have authority to decide drugs a pharmacist could prescribe, the types of patients they could treat, and the circumstances in which care could be provided. The proposal would’ve also left to the pharmacy commission’s jurisdiction what, if any, additional education and training would be required for pharmacists to be eligible for scope expansion.
The WSMA, leading a coalition of physician specialty organizations, submitted comments in opposition to the pharmacist scope of practice sunrise review proposal citing concerns not limited to patient safety, lack of requisite education and training, and absence of regulatory safeguards. WSMA physicians also testified in opposition to the proposal during a May 2025 public hearing.
This issue will be considered during the 2026 legislative session, as the pharmacy association has introduced Senate Bill 5924 to grant prescriptive authority for pharmacists. The bill takes a different, and arguably broader, approach to expanding pharmacists’ scope than what was proposed through the sunrise review by simply stipulating that pharmacists would be able to diagnose and prescribe drugs and devices “based on his or her education, training, and experience.” The bill does not propose any additional or stipulated education or training for pharmacists to be able to diagnose and prescribe. The WSMA will meet with the proponents of the bill to learn more about the proposal, but on its face it does not meet the bar set by WSMA’s policy on scope of practice which seeks to ensure that practitioners receive commensurate education and training to that of a physician when proposing to expand their scope.