Committee sends HB 327 to the floor to clarify oversight of medical assistants by advanced practitioners

Representative Healy, sponsor of House Bill 327, presented the bill and asked the committee to send it to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation. Healy described the measure as a cleanup to reflect current clinical practice: advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) now practice with full autonomy in many settings, but the existing statute historically tied medical assistants to supervision by medical doctors or physician assistants. Healy said the bill would clarify that medical assistants may work as credentialed members of clinic teams and be overseen consistent with modern practice.

Healy said: “The long short of the history is back when medical assistance, the creation of medical assistance, Many, many, many years ago medical assistants were designed to work under medical doctors and physicians assistants…Long story, here we are advancing our medical practices and now we have advanced practice registered nurses that have full autonomy and practice and there's really nowhere in state statute that says that they can oversee medical assistance…So we thought we should probably clean that up and make it so that we can continue practicing in clinics and having these wonderful, certified medical assistants assisting and being a valuable part of our practice.”

Representative Wheeler moved that the committee send House Bill 327 to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation. The committee voted by voice; members voted “aye” and the chair announced the motion carried and that House Bill 327 would be sent to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation.

The transcript does not show the bill text or statutory sections amended. No public testimony or fiscal notes were recorded in the committee discussion as part of the presented excerpt.