SB 679 California Senate · 2025-2026 Regular Session

Health care facilities: physicians and surgeons: terminations and revocation of staff privileges: data reporting by race and gender.

Summary

Existing law establishes a peer review process for certain healing arts licensees and requires peer review bodies to review licensee conduct under specified circumstances. If a licentiate's membership, staff privileges, or employment is terminated or revoked for a medical disciplinary cause or reason, existing law requires the chief executive officer or administrator of a licensed health care facility, among others, to file an "805 report" with the relevant state licensing agency having regulatory jurisdiction over the licentiate. This bill would require a health care facility or peer review body, on or before March 1 of each year, to submit a report to the Civil Rights Department that includes, among other data, the number of physicians and surgeons and medical residents at the health care facility who were terminated, the number of physicians and surgeons who completed an application for staff privileges, were granted staff privileges, or for whom staff privileges were suspended or revoked, and the number of physicians and surgeons or medical residents in those categories, stratified by race and gender. The bill would require the Civil Rights Department, on or before September 1 of each year, to publish the information on the department's internet website, would require the information to be aggregated and deidentified, and would prohibit disclosure of the names of the health care facilities or any personally identifiable information. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.

Bill status failed 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Feb 21, 2025 Last action Feb 2, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 3 comparisons

What changed between versions

04/22/25 - Amended Senate → SB679 · 1 edit

MINOR

No substantive policy changes were made between these two versions. The diff reflects a reformatting of the bill from a traditional printed legislative document layout (with line numbers, page headers, and column formatting) to a web-based presentation format (with navigation menus, search tools, and hyperlinked sections). The actual statutory text of SB 679 remains identical.

TECHNICAL

The bill was reformatted from a printed document layout with line numbers and page headers into a web page layout with navigation elements (skip to content, home, accessibility, FAQ, feedback, sitemap, login), a quick search bar, and hyperlinked sections for text, votes, history, analysis, and status.

03/25/25 - Amended Senate → 04/22/25 - Amended Senate · 7 edits · Apr 22, 2025

MODERATE

The April 22 amendment to SB 679 narrows the data collection scope by requiring only completed staff privilege applications (not all applications), adds a new category for suspended privileges, and significantly strengthens privacy protections by requiring published data to be aggregated and deidentified and by making submitted reports confidential under the Public Records Act. The bill also removes a legislative intent statement about residency programs and adds an administrative provision allowing facilities to file a single combined report.

Scope change

The bill's scope was narrowed in two ways: (1) it no longer tracks all staff privilege applications, only completed ones, and (2) the removed legislative intent statement about residency programs signals a retreat from broader data collection goals. However, scope was also expanded by adding suspended privileges as a tracked category.

SCOPE

Changed from reporting on physicians who 'applied for staff privileges' to those who 'completed an application for staff privileges,' narrowing the data collected to only finished applications.

Removed the standalone legislative intent section that stated it was the Legislature's intent to enact legislation on data collection relating to residency programs and privileges for physicians and surgeons.

REQUIREMENT

Added a new data category requiring facilities to report the number of physicians, surgeons, and medical residents whose staff privileges were suspended (previously only revocations were tracked).

Strengthened the publication requirement by adding that published data must be 'aggregated and deidentified,' going beyond the prior language that only required removing facility names and personally identifying information.

ENFORCEMENT

Added a confidentiality provision stating that information submitted to the Civil Rights Department is confidential and cannot be disclosed under the California Public Records Act, except for the aggregated public publication.

TECHNICAL

Added a new subdivision (b) allowing a health care facility or peer review body to submit a single combined report containing all required information, rather than separate reports.

FISCAL

Fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes,' indicating the bill now carries a state fiscal impact.

02/21/25 - Introduced → 03/25/25 - Amended Senate · 4 edits · Mar 25, 2025

MODERATE

The bill was transformed from a non-operative placeholder expressing only legislative intent into a substantive data reporting law. It now requires health care facilities and peer review bodies to submit annual reports to the Civil Rights Department and Medical Board of California with data on physician terminations, staff privilege applications, grants, and revocations, all stratified by race and gender. The Civil Rights Department must publish this data publicly each September, with facility names and personally identifiable information redacted.

Scope change

The bill went from having no operative effect (a pure statement of legislative intent) to imposing binding annual reporting obligations on health care facilities and peer review bodies statewide, with a public publication requirement by the Civil Rights Department.

REQUIREMENT

New Section 805.3 added to the Business and Professions Code requiring health care facilities or peer review bodies to submit an annual report by March 1 to the Civil Rights Department and Medical Board of California, including: number of physicians/surgeons/residents terminated, number who applied for staff privileges, number granted staff privileges, number whose privileges were revoked, and all of these stratified by race and gender.

ENFORCEMENT

The Civil Rights Department is required to publish the submitted data on its website by September 1 each year, making it publicly available while redacting facility names and personally identifiable information.

TECHNICAL

Legislative findings under Article I, Section 3 of the California Constitution were added to justify the limitation on public access (i.e., the redaction of facility names and PII from published data).

SCOPE

The bill's scope expanded from a single non-operative intent statement to an operative statute with specific reporting obligations, deadlines, data categories, and publication requirements. The fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes,' indicating the amendment creates fiscal impact.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Amendments

May 23, 2025

Upper · Passed

May 23 hearing: Held in committee and under submission.

upper

Apr 30, 2025

Upper · Passed

From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 12. Noes 0. Page 942.) (April 29). Re-referred to Com. on APPR.

upper

Apr 22, 2025

Upper · Passed

Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on JUD.

upper

Apr 21, 2025

Upper · Passed

From committee: Do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on JUD. (Ayes 8. Noes 0. Page 809.) (April 21).

upper

Apr 2, 2025

Committee

Re-referred to Coms. on B. P. & E.D. and JUD.

upper

Mar 25, 2025

Upper · Passed

From committee with author's amendments. Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on RLS.

upper

Mar 5, 2025

Committee

Referred to Com. on RLS.

upper

Feb 21, 2025

Introduced

Introduced. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. To print.

upper

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors