AANA Legislative Updates
Federally, there are numerous pieces of legislation that AANA and VANA Government Relations are monitoring closely.
The Improving Care and Access to Nurses (ICAN) Act has been reintroduced in the U.S. House and Senate. This legislation will make a real difference for our patients by eliminating many of the barriers to the use of the highest-quality healthcare services provided by advanced practice registered nurses. Currently the ICAN act is in committee in both the House and Senate.
Among other things, this important legislation would remove physician supervision of CRNAs in Medicare. To learn more and contact your U.S. Representatives and Senators to ask them to cosponsor the ICAN Act, click here!
VANA is also monitoring the Ensuring Veterans Have Timely Access to Anesthesia Care Act of 2025, which will remove outdated and unnecessary barriers that limit veterans’ access to timely anesthesia care in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). This legislation will align the VHA with the current Defense Health Agency policy that allows both CRNAs and physician anesthesiologists to be autonomous providers of anesthesia, giving VA facilities a choice of anesthesia models, while strengthening safety and transparency within the VHA. Urge Congress to support this legislation here!
In September, AANA sent a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kennedy, Secretary of Labor Chavez-DeRemer, and Secretary of Department of Treasury Bessent urging an investigation and intervention around commercial payer anesthesia reimbursement policies that will ultimately harm patients and affect patient access to care. United Healthcare announced this new policy on July 1, 2025 that became effective on October 1, 2025 that we have been told is in violation of the federal provider nondiscrimination law and that does not have any clinical justification to be enacted. As we continue to engage on this issue we encourage you to watch for action alerts from VANA. Your support will be vital as we work to get this harmful policy overturned.
