AB 876 (Flora, R-Ripon)

AB 876 would authorize credentialed nurse anesthetists to provide direct and indirect patient care services as specified, and would construe an order entered in a patient’s medical record as authorization for the nurse anesthetist to select, abort, or modify the modality of the patient’s anesthesia during the course of care. This bill would also provide that, in an acute care or outpatient setting, anesthesia services may encompass those performed outside of the perioperative period as specified. Recent amendments eliminate the bill’s original prohibitions on requiring nurse anesthetists to work pursuant to standard procedures or under the supervision of a physician, among other things.