AB 1637 limits changes to physician medical record entries
Oct 11, 2026 edition · GC-2026-0217 · Published 2026-10-11 · Version 3 · Final
AB 1637 makes the authoring physician responsible for patient notes across clinical settings and limits who may edit them. The enacted exceptions preserve authorized delegation, additions after transfer of care, and supervising-physician edits to trainee notes, so implementation requires role-specific permissions.
What happened
California enacted AB 1637 on September 27 as Chapter 536. New Business and Professions Code section 2266.1 places responsibility for physician patient notes on the authoring physician, regardless of clinical setting. Patient notes include notes, after-visit summaries, diagnoses, and treatment plans. The section generally reserves editing to the authoring physician, which makes authorship and the kind of record entry material to the permission analysis rather than establishing that any user with EHR access may revise a physician's documentation.
Three exceptions qualify that rule. A scribe, medical assistant, or other authorized person may act under delegated authority. A physician may add to the notes after care transfers to that physician; this clause expressly concerns additions. A physician may also edit notes of a trainee, postgraduate licensee, intern, resident, or postdoctoral fellow whom that physician supervises. These provisions preserve particular delegated and supervisory workflows without granting unrestricted rewriting authority to every subsequent treating professional or administrative user.
Scope and timing
- Authority status
- Final
- Applicability
- Potentially applicable
- Audience
- Health systems, Provider networks, Health-tech
- Jurisdiction
- California
- Recorded date
- 2027-01-01
- Date type
- effective
Why it matters
A blanket ban on all delegated editing would misstate the law and disrupt lawful workflows.
Recommended action
Map author, delegate, trainee supervisor and transfer permissions in the EHR; preserve attribution and amendment history.
Sources
- AB1637 enacted final textOfficial · California Legislature · 2026-09-27 · Source review 2026-10-11
- California Constitution, Article IV section 8(c), official Assembly 2023–24 editionOfficial · California State Assembly · Source review 2026-10-14
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