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Senate panel hears testimony to permanently allow pharmacists to test and treat COVID-19
Summary
Witnesses told the Oregon Senate Committee on Health Care that codifying pharmacists' authority to test and treat COVID-19 would preserve access to outpatient therapies; supporters pointed to federal PREP Act history and pharmacy testing volume while some medical representatives said they remain cautiously neutral.
Senate health committee members heard public testimony April 24 on Senate Bill 295A, which would remove a sunset and permanently allow Oregon pharmacists to test for and provide outpatient COVID-19 treatment when appropriate.
The bill’s backers told the committee preserving pharmacist test-and-treat authority would maintain quick, accessible care for symptomatic Oregonians and align state law with federal actions that have enabled pharmacy-based COVID response.
Pharmacist Kevin Smith, a former Oregon State Pharmacy Association president, said the PREP Act and later federal extensions initially enabled pharmacists nationwide to test for COVID-19 and, after 2021, to provide outpatient therapies where appropriate. “The federal government got it right in 2020 and 2021, and Senate Bill 295 codifies this in OR for Oregonians,” Smith said. He described how Oregon pharmacists historically relied on the PREP Act and on administrative pathways (the Public Health and Pharmacy Formulary Advisory Committee, PFAC) to deliver testing and treatment.
Smith told the panel that an earlier 2024 short session measure included a sunset tied to continued deliberation by a work group convened by Senator Patterson; SB 295A would remove that sunset. He cited national testing scale and a CDC-modeled analysis: “Through 2023, CVS alone … performed over 61,000,000 COVID tests across the U.S.,” and treating 20% of symptomatic cases with Paxlovid could avert millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations over a modeled period, he said.
Courtney Dresser of the Oregon Medical Association said the OMA is “supportively neutral.” She said the association has ongoing conversations with the pharmacy sector and the bill’s sponsor, and acknowledged that pharmacists’ response to COVID has been “proven” when following CDC guidelines. Henry O’Keefe, vice president of health care policy at the PacWest lobby group, said his clients — including Doctors for Healthy Communities and independent physician groups — participated in the work group and that while they had concerns about treatments proposed previously for pharmacist scope expansion, they were “ultimately fairly comfortable” with the current approach.
Representative Deal asked whether testing frequency remains an issue; O’Keefe responded that the current access issue is more about access to Paxlovid and similar therapies than to over-the-counter tests, which he believed are still available.
No formal committee vote occurred during the public hearing; the chair closed the hearing after testimony and questions.
Why it matters: Supporters say keeping test-and-treat authority with pharmacists will preserve rapid access to antiviral treatment, especially outside standard clinic hours, and provide another access point to limit severe outcomes. Opponents and cautious stakeholders have asked for clarity about specific conditions pharmacists may treat and want the statutory language and implementation to be carefully defined.
Ending: The committee closed the public hearing and moved on to the next bill; a work session was scheduled for follow-up consideration.
