About Us/Bylaws

WA/ACEP is your state advocate for emergency medicine, with over 700 physician members. WA/ACEP is a democratic organization with an elected board of directors representing practice settings of all types and a full range of emergency medicine experience.  This diversity and unity gives us strength to pursue our common goal.

The organization is widely recognized as the voice of emergency medicine and engages in frequent communications with the general public, key interest groups, and the media about the role and value of emergency medicine in the health care delivery system. WA/ACEP is a unifying force for emergency medicine physicians facing new challenges in a rapidly changing health care environment.

WA/ACEP Accomplishments

The following accomplishments highlight the important role WA/ACEP plays in representing the interests of the individual emergency physician in Washington State.

  • Stopped Efforts to Undermine Physicians’ Ability to Negotiate with Insurers
    • Successfully defeated balance billing legislation for 2 consecutive years
    • Formed a working group to address concerns about balance billing practices
    • In conjunction with the WSMA, filled a Writ of Mandamus to compel the OIC to enforce the current law as written
  • Lobbied our Congressional Delegation for legislative action to correct the flawed formula used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to set physician Medicare payment rates.
  • Prevented Prior Authorization Processes for CT scans in the Emergency Department from the Department of Labor & Industries.
  • Supported and implemented the statewide Prescribing Pain Medication in the Emergency Department Guidelines.
  • Brought together a coalition of hospital and physician groups to work together on the psychiatric patient boarding crisis.
  • We continue to work for solutions to the overcrowding crisis.
  • Aggressively lobbied in opposition to the State’s three “non-emergent” visit limit
  • Formed a working group with hospitals, primary care and pediatrics to develop policies to decrease non-emergent ER visits per the legislative directive

Read the Washington ACEP Bylaws, revised May 2023.