Throughout the 2025 California legislative session, the CVMA has intensely lobbied in opposition to two scope of practice expansion attempts by human health care practitioners to work on animals without veterinarian supervision. The CVMA is pleased to report that both “scope creep” bills have been put on pause for the year.

AB 1458 (Wallis) Physical therapy and veterinary medicine: animal physical therapy.

This bill would allow human physical therapists to work on animals completely unsupervised in their own facility following the attendance of a certification course. This bill will not be heard in the Assembly Business and Professions Committee, as had been previously planned. The policy committee was requesting that the author accept substantive amendments prior to the hearing, and it appears that there was no agreement reached between the Committee, the author, and sponsors in time for the April 29 deadline for the bill to be heard. This means that AB 1458 will not be considered this year. Instead, AB 1458 will become a “two-year” bill by the choice of the author and will not be eligible to be presented again in a committee hearing until January 2026.

SB 687 (Ochoa-Bogh) Chiropractors: animal chiropractic practitioners.

This bill would allow chiropractors to work on animals completely unsupervised in their own facility following attendance of a certification course. It was scheduled to be heard in the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee earlier this week; however, the policy committee proposed several significant amendments to the bill that the author and sponsors did not accept. As a result, SB 687 will not be considered this year. Instead, like AB 1458 above, it will become a “two-year” bill and will not be eligible to be presented again in a hearing until January 2026.

The CVMA wishes to thank its coalition opposition partners: the American Veterinary Medical Association, the Sacramento Valley Veterinary Medical Association, the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association, and the San Diego County Veterinary Medical Association in fighting these measures. The CVMA also thanks members who received and answered Action Alert emails prompting them to send a message to their state legislator in opposition to these bills.

For an update on all of the priority bills that the CVMA is working on this session, please click here.

For an up-to-date list of 2025 California legislation being followed by the CVMA, click here.