2025 Legislative Wrap-Up
Legislative News from the MSV
Your advocacy and engagement resulted in a tremendously successful session for the practice of medicine—and patients—in Virginia.
Session Highlights
- Tracked over 400 bills and budget amendments.
- Held three lobby days and six student lobby days with over 475 physicians, PAs, and students in attendance. Collectively, we met with 124 of 140 members of the House and Senate to advocate for our legislative priorities.
- MSV members sent over 1,900 VoterVoice messages across 7 campaigns to all 140 members of the General Assembly in support or opposition to legislation affecting the practice of medicine in Virginia.
2025 Legislative Successes
Reporting Threats and Acts of Violence in Hospitals
The MSV worked with Senator Aird and Delegate Tran to require hospitals to develop a reporting system to document, track, and analyze incidents of workplace violence. Hospitals are required to report this data to their Chief Medical Officer, Chief Nursing Officer, and the Department of Health. The bill also establishes a work group to make recommendations to the General Assembly on how this data can be reported to the public in the future.
Medical Malpractice
Senator Stanley introduced legislation that sought to repeal the medical malpractice cap in instances when a patient is under ten years of age. The MSV led a coalition of dozens of specialty societies, healthcare provider organizations, and hospitals in opposition to this bill. After reporting from the Senate Courts Committee, the bill was successfully defeated in the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.
Reforming Certificate of Public Need (COPN)
The MSV remains committed to increasing access to care and decreasing costs for patients by reforming Certificate of Public Need (COPN). The MSV worked with Senator Hashmi on legislation to allow some psychiatric projects to move through the expedited review process, drastically reducing the administrative costs of the COPN process and increasing access to healthcare.
Health Insurance Carrier Fees
The MSV worked with Senator Head and Delegate Shin on legislation to require health insurers and their third-party payors to disclose any transaction fees on payments and provide a payment option that does not include any fees. This legislation will save practices thousands of dollars a month in administrative costs.
Expanding SafeHaven™ Protections
In 2020 the MSV led Virginia to become the first state in the nation to pass legislation to allow physicians and PAs to seek treatment for career fatigue and burnout without fear of repercussions to their medical license. Over the past few years, we have expanded these protections to nurses, pharmacists, medical students, and dentists. This session, the MSV worked with Delegate Hope to expand protections to all providers licensed by the Department of Health Professions.
Want to Get Involved?
Join WCOC 365 for legislative updates and advocacy opportunities. And to help ensure the MSV can continue being successful in the legislature, contribute to the MSVPAC – the only PAC representing the unified voice of medicine.
- The MSV remains committed to increasing access to care and decreasing costs for patients by reforming Certificate of Public Need (COPN). The MSV worked with Senator Petersen and Delegate Robinson to implement expedited review and remove barriers to creating new psychiatric facilities. Although the legislation did not progress this year, the ongoing conversations around COPN reform have continued to gain support in both chambers.
- Our team worked to oppose many pieces of legislation that lowers the amount of training or creates different standards for different types of independently practicing healthcare providers.
- The MSV worked with Delegate Bell to increase legal protections for threatening a healthcare provider in care settings outside the hospital – including physician offices and free clinics.
- The MSV worked closely with the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes Foundation to change the mental health question on Department of Health Professions applications and further reduce the stigma around doctors getting help for depression, anxiety, and burnout.
- The MSV also worked closely with Dr. Rheuban and the Virginia Telehealth Network to amend bills dealing with telehealth and telemedicine to ensure patient safety while also expanding access.
