Signing for a Physician Assistant in California: what the physician takes on

Available remotely (no on-site requirement)

Bus. & Prof. Code §3501: physical presence of the supervising physician is explicitly NOT required; the physician must be reachable 'by telephone or other electronic communication method' while the PA is examining a patient. No mileage/radius standard is codified.

Up to 8 at a time

Bus. & Prof. Code §3516(b), as amended by AB 1501 (2025, eff. 1/1/2026): 'a physician and surgeon shall not supervise more than eight physician assistants at any one time' — a universal increase from the prior 4-PA cap (a narrower 2023 exception, AB 1070, had allowed 8 only for limited in-home/wellness-visit PAs; AB 1501 made 8:1 universal). Exact statutory wording not independently re-verified against chaptered text — sourced via an AI-summarized bill-text fetch plus consistent law-firm corroboration.

0% of charts · As needed

Coded 0%/as-needed to distinguish an affirmative statutory exemption from silence: Bus. & Prof. Code §3502(c) states physicians are NOT required to review/countersign PA records 'unless required by the practice agreement.' The Medical Board may separately impose chart-review conditions on an individual physician's probation, but there's no general statutory percentage.

Separate prescribing terms required · controlled substances permitted

Bus. & Prof. Code §3502.1 (Schedule II/III mechanics) was not independently fetched verbatim — sourced via Justia/FindLaw secondary summaries, moderately confirmed. The CURES 6-month recheck figure is confirmed via direct statute fetch; a conflicting '4 months' figure appears in some secondary sources and should be treated as superseded/incorrect.

Licensee-only ownership required — General CPOM baseline: Bus. & Prof. Code §2400 bars corporations from holding 'professional rights, privileges, or powers.' NOTABLE EXCEPTION, CONFIRMED via direct fetch: Corp. Code §13401.5(i) recognizes a 'Physician Assistants Corporation' structure under which licensed PAs hold the MAJORITY (≥51%) of shares, with physicians, RNs, acupuncturists, naturopathic doctors, and licensed midwives eligible only as minority shareholders — the reverse of the usual assumption that CA requires physician ownership of everything. Entity ownership is legally separate from clinical independence, though: even a PA-majority-owned corporation must still operate its clinical PA services under a practice agreement with a supervising physician.

Corp. Code §13401.5(i)'s subsection letter and the PA ≥51%/minority-shareholder-list structure are confirmed via a dedicated follow-up fetch, superseding the original secondary-sourced hedge.