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2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB713
HB713 creates a narrow exception to professional reporting requirements for health care providers, expressly including nurses, who review information in a case selected under Texas's maternal mortality and morbidity review law.
Official caption: Relating to an exception to certain reporting requirements for health care providers reviewing selected cases for the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee.
Official report lists House author(s): Howard, Johnson. 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.
- HB713 creates a narrow exception to professional reporting requirements for health care providers, expressly including nurses, who review information in a case selected under Texas's maternal mortality and morbidity review law.
- The setting matters.
- The law took effect June 20, 2025, immediately upon the governor's approval, because it received the required two-thirds vote in both chambers.
What does it do?
HB713 creates a narrow exception to professional reporting requirements for health care providers, expressly including nurses, who review information in a case selected under Texas’s maternal mortality and morbidity review law. If a reviewer learns through that review of conduct related to the reviewer’s profession that normally must be reported, the reviewer is exempt from that reporting requirement for the reviewed information. Final law
The setting matters. Chapter 34 provides for review of pregnancy-related deaths and, when feasible, selected severe maternal complications. This is not a general exemption from reporting professional misconduct learned during ordinary patient care. Nor does HB713 itself erase liability for the underlying conduct or declare that conduct lawful. Its operative change concerns the reviewer’s reporting obligation in this particular review process. Review framework and new Section 34.0085
The law took effect June 20, 2025, immediately upon the governor’s approval, because it received the required two-thirds vote in both chambers. Official history
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill, House committee report, engrossed bill, Senate committee report and enrolled law contain the same operative language. Both committees reported it without amendments, and the official amendment index lists none. There was no conference rewrite. The final recorded votes were 105–34 in the House, with one present but not voting, and 28–3 in the Senate.
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?
Health professionals participating in the review process gain clarity that reviewing a selected case does not itself trigger a separate professional reporting duty for the information reviewed. That may support candid participation and attention to preventing future deaths or serious complications. Those are potential practical benefits, not a measured outcome promised by the law.
The tradeoff is that this review channel will not necessarily generate the professional reports that the same information might otherwise require. The exemption is limited to the reviewed information; it is not a general shield against other investigations or independently applicable obligations outside that setting.
The latest fiscal note anticipated no significant state or local-government fiscal impact, assuming any costs could be absorbed with existing resources. HB713 does not appropriate money or establish a new treatment benefit.
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.