The California Medical Association (CMA) works tirelessly on behalf of its nearly 50,000 members to support physician-led advocacy from legislation and policy-making to regulatory and legal affairs to practice management and reimbursement assistance.
CMA was once again at the center of key state health care policy decisions and action. With CMA’s help, California helped set an example for the nation in vaccinating residents, even as we coped with the rise of the delta variant. In addition to our work on COVID-19, CMA won key victories for physicians in the state budget, helped increase funding for public health and continues to build our physician workforce to help deal with chronic shortages across the state. This year's achievements include:
CMA's Top Highlights for 2021
COVID-19 Vaccines: CMA worked closely with the Newsom Administration to ensure all Californians had access to vaccines, providing mapping data and physician feedback to help the state build a distribution network that allowed community-based physicians to obtain vaccines for their patients.
Telehealth: CMA sponsored AB 457 (Santiago), which ensures patients can access telehealth services from their selected health care providers, rather than a third-party corporate telehealth provider.
COVID-19 Payments: CMA sponsored SB 510 (Pan), which requires health insurers to cover the cost of COVID-19 tests and vaccine administration.