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2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB4454
HB4454 tightens marketing and patient-referral rules and creates an eight-member task force to recommend better enforcement.
Official caption: Relating to solicitation of patients and other prohibited marketing practices, the establishment of the task force on patient solicitation, and the prosecution of certain related criminal offenses.
Official report lists House author(s): Vo. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
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.
- HB4454 tightens marketing and patient-referral rules and creates an eight-member task force to recommend better enforcement.
- For covered mental-health and chemical-dependency treatment facilities, the act expressly includes Internet advertising.
- The minimum civil penalty available in an enforcement lawsuit rises from $1,000 to $2,000 per violation; the maximum remains $25,000.
- Four task-force members are appointed by the Health and Human Services Commission's executive commissioner and four by the attorney general.
- The act's offense changes apply only to offenses committed on or after September 1, 2025.
What does it do?
HB4454 tightens marketing and patient-referral rules and creates an eight-member task force to recommend better enforcement. It became law without the governor’s signature on June 20, 2025, effective September 1, 2025.
For covered mental-health and chemical-dependency treatment facilities, the act expressly includes Internet advertising. A facility may not contract with a marketer supplying patient leads through a call center or website for placement with a service provider or in a recovery residence unless the contract’s terms are disclosed to the prospective patient. It prohibits false or misleading statements about the facility’s services or location, including website links redirecting people to such misinformation. Ordinary truthful general advertising is not banned.
The minimum civil penalty available in an enforcement lawsuit rises from $1,000 to $2,000 per violation; the maximum remains $25,000. The attorney general, a district attorney or a county attorney can seek an injunction and civil penalties. The act also expressly adds benefits and commissions to covered patient-solicitation payments and disclosure duties. Where a referral arrangement is otherwise permitted, the recipient must disclose the affiliation and expected compensation both at initial contact and at referral. Disclosure is not permission to make an otherwise prohibited payment. Existing federal-law exceptions in Occupations Code 102.003 remain; individual arrangements require their own legal analysis.
Four task-force members are appointed by the Health and Human Services Commission’s executive commissioner and four by the attorney general. All must have health-care or advertising expertise and serve without compensation. The task force is attached administratively to the commission and reports to the Legislature by December 1 of each even-numbered year on enforcement actions and legislative recommendations. Information the attorney general and commission supply at its request is confidential and exempt from public-information disclosure. The task force studies and recommends; the act does not give it its own prosecution power.
The act’s offense changes apply only to offenses committed on or after September 1, 2025. If any element occurred earlier, the former law governs.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill would have raised the ordinary solicitation and nondisclosure offenses from Class A misdemeanors to state-jail felonies, their enhanced third-degree felonies to second-degree felonies, and the separate healing-practitioner solicitation offense to a Class B misdemeanor. Those increases were removed in the House committee substitute and did not become law. The existing offense grades remain; the act expands covered conduct and increases the separate civil penalty minimum.
The House substitute also clarified wording about treatment facilities and school-service restrictions. Its operative text matches the engrossed, Senate committee and enrolled texts. The text index, history and amendment index show the committee substitution and no indexed floor amendments.
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?
Patients and families may gain clearer information about paid referrals and treatment locations. Honest providers may face less misleading competition. Facilities and marketing firms must review advertising, referral contracts and disclosure practices, and violators face a higher minimum civil penalty. Confidential information supports the task force’s work, while limiting public access to the information supplied to it.
The latest listed fiscal note, on the engrossed bill, anticipated no significant state or local fiscal impact and assumed the commission, attorney general and courts could absorb costs within existing resources. It does not quantify private compliance costs, patient savings or reduced harm. The earlier introduced-version fiscal discussion of increased criminal penalties describes a proposal that was removed, not the final law.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
