SB2480

Health-program participation: The Texas Physician Health Program is expressly a confidential, nondisciplinary therapeutic program for any individual holding a board-issued occupational license, certificate, registration, permit or other authorization. It must accept self-referrals from those individuals. The board or appropriate advisory board or committee may require participation as a licensing condition, subject to the retained sections 167.009 and 167.0091. Earlier law already allowed certain nonphysician professions to be referred, so the change is not the first possible participation by every nonphysician. Final law, sections 5–6; Existing physician and physician-assistant referral safeguards; Earlier referrals for other professions.

“Nondisciplinary” describes the therapeutic program, not immunity from professional discipline. The retained physician/physician-assistant provision permits an agreed order or a contested proceeding and discipline for failure to participate when required. Existing confidentiality law allows impairment reports to the appropriate board and requires reporting a physician or physician assistant found to pose a continuing threat to public welfare. The act should not be read as a promise that all information can never reach a licensing board. Final law; Participation and discipline; Confidentiality and reporting exceptions.

Monitoring: The board must maintain a continuous National Practitioner Data Bank query for each individual holding a covered authorization for whom the data bank contains relevant information. The physician-profile rule still requires updating new or corrected disciplinary reports, and removing dismissed or voided disciplinary reports, within 10 working days after the board finds the new query information. This does not make every health-program record public or automatically revoke a license. Final law, sections 1 and 4; Existing physician-profile framework.

Two different surcharges: The health-program surcharge remains capped at $15, but now covers first issuance and renewal of the wider range of board occupational authorizations. Its dedicated account pays program administration, including an initial evaluation by the medical director or designee; it cannot pay participant monitoring costs or participants’ further evaluations, treatment or continuing care. A separate surcharge covers the cost of continuous data-bank queries and also extends to issuance or renewal of the covered authorizations. The $15 cap is not stated as the cap for that separate query surcharge. Final law, sections 2–3 and 7; Prior health-program surcharge; Prior query surcharge.

Passage and transition: The introduced bill focused on extending the two surcharges. The Senate substitute added the express all-occupation query duty and health-program participation provisions, moved the health surcharge into chapter 167, and added the December 1 rulemaking deadline and application transition. The Senate committee, Senate-passed, House committee and final operative texts matched. The amendment index lists no separate amendments. Other fee ceilings reproduced in section 153.051 were not new increases imposed by this act. Introduced; Senate substitute; Text versions; Amendment index; Prior fee ceilings; Final law.

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

More regulated professionals gain explicit access to self-referral and therapeutic support, while affected licensees pay expanded surcharges and the board undertakes broader monitoring. The latest fiscal note assumes 77,805 affected licensees, $5.25 for the health program and $11 for data-bank queries, with roughly half paying each year because licenses last two years. Those are the estimate’s assumptions, not new fixed dollar rates set by SB2480. May 16 latest fiscal note; Final law.

The note projects dedicated-account revenue of $153,179 for the health program and $320,946 for public assurance in fiscal 2026, reflecting nine months of collections. It projects $204,238 and $427,927 respectively in each fiscal year 2027–30. Its $0 net effect on General Revenue-related funds for the 2026–27 biennium does not mean no one pays: the separately reported dedicated-account revenues increase. No local fiscal implication is anticipated, and the act makes no appropriation. Actual fee schedules, collections, rule adoption and individual health or licensing outcomes are not verified here. Latest fiscal tables and assumptions; Final law.