2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB3211

HB3211 gives optometrists and therapeutic optometrists a more structured route into vision-plan networks and requires clearer contract information.

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Official caption: Relating to vision care benefits, including participation of optometrists and therapeutic optometrists in vision care or managed care plans.

Became law without signatureSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Dean, Gerdes, Harless, Lalani, Phelan. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB3211 gives optometrists and therapeutic optometrists a more structured route into vision-plan networks and requires clearer contract information.
A vision-plan issuer must offer a website application method, use the same application and credentialing requirements for each applicant, and limit requested information to the applicable standardized credentialing information or the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare credentialing application.
The issuer may consider only information in the credentialing application.
Managed-care contracts with these practitioners must provide electronic access to a fee schedule individually identifying covered products and services.
A drafting issue remains visible in the text: the new fee-schedule clause refers to codes “described by Section 1451.153,” but the amendment putting those codes in that section was removed.

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What does it do?

HB3211 gives optometrists and therapeutic optometrists a more structured route into vision-plan networks and requires clearer contract information. It became law without the governor’s signature on June 20, 2025, effective that day. Its contract applicability provision covers contracts between vision-plan issuers and these providers entered into or renewed on or after that date, not every existing contract immediately. Final law; official history.

A vision-plan issuer must offer a website application method, use the same application and credentialing requirements for each applicant, and limit requested information to the applicable standardized credentialing information or the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare credentialing application. The law sets these deadlines, all in business days:

Within 10 days after receiving an application meeting the plan’s application requirements, make the provider contract, reimbursement schedules, handbooks and manuals available electronically.
Within 30 days after receiving the application, complete the credentialing decision. Approve and deliver the contract for signature, or deny and provide a written explanation within 10 days after denial.
Within 20 days after an approved applicant is credentialed and accepts the contract, add that provider to the plan.

The issuer may consider only information in the credentialing application. A vision plan cannot exclude a provider who meets its credentialing requirements and accepts its contract terms. Nor can it exclude a provider because a panel already has enough optometrists, including in a particular area, or because of patient travel time, distance or appointment availability. Participation must extend to the full license scope across the issuer’s vision plans with Texas enrollees and its vision panels. This does not require the plan to cover a particular product or service. “Vision care plan” means limited-scope eye-care coverage, not comprehensive medical insurance; the act does not enlarge a practitioner’s license.

Managed-care contracts with these practitioners must provide electronic access to a fee schedule individually identifying covered products and services. The law separately requires vision plans to use standardized Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System names, definitions and codes, including AMA Level I and CMS Level II codes. It retains the existing ban on estimating audit recoveries by projecting a sampled error rate onto unreviewed claims: payments and refunds must reflect actual overpayments or underpayments.

A drafting issue remains visible in the text: the new fee-schedule clause refers to codes “described by Section 1451.153,” but the amendment putting those codes in that section was removed. The enacted vision-plan coding rule is instead explicit in Section 1451.157(c). This explanation does not silently repair that cross-reference or claim to resolve its effect for every managed-care contract. Current referenced section.

What changed along the way?

The filed bill had a five-day contract-delivery rule and a less detailed entry process. The House substitute established the 10/30/20-business-day structure, uniform credentialing rules, fee-schedule provisions and limits on network-size exclusions. The version index distinguishes that substitute from the three adopted floor amendments:

Dean’s second-reading amendment removed the proposed changes to Section 1451.153, narrowed the new all-plan participation language by dropping “other managed care plans with vision benefits,” allowed electronic availability of the initial contract materials, expressly tied the final enrollment deadline to credentialing, and clarified that participation does not mandate coverage. It placed the new qualifying-provider protection and explicit coding requirement in the vision-plan section while retaining the old audit safeguard. These changes survived.
Buckley’s second-reading amendment proposed a 95% Medicaid fee-for-service reimbursement floor, associated Medicaid contract changes and a federal-waiver provision. It also revised the contract applicability language.
Buckley’s third-reading amendment removed that Medicaid floor and its implementation/waiver sections. The 95% floor is not part of HB3211 as enacted. The revised contract applicability language remained.

The House-passed, Senate-reported and enrolled substantive texts agree. Removing a proposed amendment to an existing section did not repeal the protections already in that section. Full amendment index.

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Optometrists may benefit from predictable credentialing deadlines, greater access to networks and clearer fee schedules. Patients may have more participating-provider options, but actual access still depends on providers joining, accepting terms and offering appointments. Plans face application, contract and network-administration duties. The law does not guarantee lower premiums, a specific payment rate or coverage of every service.

The May 13 fiscal note anticipated no significant state or local-government fiscal impact, assuming costs could be absorbed with existing resources. It does not quantify private plan costs or savings for patients and providers. That final-stage note concerns the text after removal of the proposed Medicaid reimbursement floor.

Review boundary: All five enacted sections, all three amendments and the historical/current cross-references were checked. The unresolved drafting cross-reference is disclosed above; this is not an interpretation of a particular insurance contract or a prediction of court enforcement.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.