AN ACT relating to physician assistants.
SB 88 substantially revises Kentucky’s physician assistant (PA) law by replacing the current “supervising physician” framework with a “collaborating physician” and “collaboration agreement” model. The bill updates statutory definitions, creates a new Physician Assistant Advisory Committee, and directs the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure to regulate PA licensing, temporary licensing, controlled-substance prescribing, and related standards through administrative regulation. It also sets out required elements of collaboration agreements, including scope of practice, communication and decision-making procedures, signatures, recordkeeping, and a limit of four physician assistants per collaborating physician.
The bill expands and clarifies what PAs may do under a collaboration agreement, including performing histories and physicals, diagnosing and treating patients, ordering and interpreting tests, writing orders, obtaining informed consent, and prescribing nonscheduled legend drugs and certain controlled substances subject to limits. It also preserves and updates special rules for anesthesiology assistants and allows PAs to serve in mental health and involuntary commitment contexts if they meet specified experience or training requirements. In addition, SB 88 amends multiple health-related statutes to conform terminology from “supervising” to “collaborating” physician and to recognize PAs in hospital admission, psychiatric, juvenile, and controlled-substance monitoring provisions. The bill repeals older statutes governing supervising-physician approval and supervision requirements.
SB 88 would make broad conforming changes across Kentucky law by shifting physician assistant practice from a supervision-based model to a collaboration-based model and by repealing KRS 311.854, 311.856, and 311.860. It would affect the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, physician assistants, collaborating physicians, hospitals, mental health facilities, and other licensed health care settings. The bill also updates controlled-substance monitoring and medicinal cannabis tracking statutes to include physician assistants where appropriate and to align reporting, access, and disciplinary provisions with the new collaboration structure.
Based on the bill text, the measure appears generally supportive of expanding and modernizing physician assistant practice authority while retaining regulatory oversight and patient-safety controls. The absence of committee transcripts or recorded votes means there is no direct evidence of public debate or formal opposition in the provided materials. The structure of the bill suggests an intent to streamline PA practice and reduce outdated supervision terminology rather than to sharply expand independent practice.
The main policy tension in SB 88 is between greater practice flexibility for physician assistants and continued limits intended to preserve physician oversight and public safety. Potential points of contention include the replacement of “supervision” with “collaboration,” the cap of four PAs per collaborating physician, the scope of prescriptive authority for controlled substances, and the extent to which PAs may participate in mental health and anesthesiology services. Stakeholders likely to focus on these issues include physician assistant advocates, the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, physicians, hospitals, and regulators concerned with controlled-substance oversight.