Executive Summary Governor Newsom signed AB 1979 (Chapter 854) and SB 503 (Chapter 857) on September 30, 2026. Both take effect January 1, 2027, and both expressly cover a physician’s office, defined as the office of a physician in solo practice. There is no size, revenue or patient volume threshold in either law. AB 1979…
Executive Summary Seven states now restrict artificial intelligence in mental and behavioral health care. Illinois and Nevada acted in 2025. Colorado, Maine, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont followed in 2026, and five of those seven took effect between June and August 2026. They converge on one principle and diverge on almost everything else. Illinois fines…
Executive Summary The patient facing chatbot your practice added to its website is no longer governed by HIPAA alone. Three separate layers of law now reach it: HIPAA, the Federal Trade Commission, and a fast growing set of state statutes that regulate conversational AI directly. Tennessee’s restriction on AI systems representing themselves as qualified mental…
