2025 · Regular session · Senate bill
SB331
SB331 expands Texas’s health-care price-disclosure law to more kinds of facilities, while exempting facilities with less than $10 million in total gross revenue.
Official caption: Relating to the disclosure of health care cost information by certain health care facilities; imposing an administrative penalty.
Official report lists Senate author(s): Kolkhorst. 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.
- SB331 expands Texas’s health-care price-disclosure law to more kinds of facilities, while exempting facilities with less than $10 million in total gross revenue.
- The definition now expressly includes general, special and mental hospitals, hospitals with crisis-stabilization units, limited-services rural hospitals and hospitals operating under specified certificates of public advantage.
- The underlying disclosure system already required a public, machine-readable file of standard charges and consumer-friendly information for services that patients can schedule in advance.
- The commission may impose administrative penalties for failure to respond to a corrective-action-plan request or comply with an approved plan.
What does it do?
SB331 expands Texas’s health-care price-disclosure law to more kinds of facilities, while exempting facilities with less than $10 million in total gross revenue. Signed and effective June 20, 2025, it gives facilities newly required to disclose information by this expansion until August 31, 2029. That transition is not a blanket pause for hospitals already covered. Final law; Official history.
The definition now expressly includes general, special and mental hospitals, hospitals with crisis-stabilization units, limited-services rural hospitals and hospitals operating under specified certificates of public advantage. It also lists abortion facilities, ambulatory surgical centers, birthing centers, chemical-dependency treatment facilities, end-stage renal-disease facilities, freestanding emergency medical care facilities, narcotic-drug treatment programs and special-care facilities. The $10 million threshold applies to this chapter’s coverage. It does not make every medical office or every health business subject to the chapter.
The underlying disclosure system already required a public, machine-readable file of standard charges and consumer-friendly information for services that patients can schedule in advance. Standard charges include gross charges, cash prices and negotiated payer prices—not merely one sticker price. The shoppable-service rules cover at least 300 services, or all offered services if fewer, and permit a qualifying online price-estimator alternative for that part of the requirement. The law also requires annual updates and submissions to the Health and Human Services Commission. SB331 extends that framework rather than creating it from scratch. Existing disclosure duties; Standard-charge file; Shoppable services and estimator alternative.
The commission may impose administrative penalties for failure to respond to a corrective-action-plan request or comply with an approved plan. For facilities with $10 million to less than $100 million in total gross revenue, the amended cap says $100 for each violation; for facilities at $100 million or more, it remains $1,000 for each day of violation. The existing rule treating each continuing day as a separate violation remains, so the $100 language is not a one-time lifetime cap. The former under-$10-million penalty tier is removed along with those facilities’ coverage. These penalty changes apply to violations on or after June 20, 2025; earlier violations stay under prior law. Threshold, transition and penalty changes; Retained daily-violation framework.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill used a broad facility definition, including urgent-care/retail and outpatient clinics and other licensed facilities. The Senate substitute used a longer itemized list, set a $7 million threshold and moved the new-facility deadline to 2027. Kolkhorst’s adopted Senate amendment removed several categories, including community mental-health centers, outpatient rehabilitation facilities, certain laboratories, rural health clinics and portable X-ray suppliers, and restored the 2029 date. Do not treat those removed categories as automatically covered by SB331. All versions; Senate amendment.
The House substitute raised the threshold to $12 million, changed the middle-tier penalty wording to “each violation,” and dropped the Senate’s proposed additional cumulative daily penalty cap. Frank’s adopted third-reading amendment would have expressly allowed recommendations to repeal the chapter when other state sources offered substantially similar information. That amendment did not survive the conference agreement. House floor amendment; Both amendments and dispositions.
The conference report settled on $10 million, retained the narrower facility list and 2029 transition, and omitted the House repeal-recommendation change. Both chambers adopted the conference report May 31. The final threshold is neither the Senate’s $7 million nor the House’s $12 million. Official conference text in the Senate journal; Enrolled law.
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?
The May 30 conference fiscal note begins with “no significant fiscal implication” to the state, but its detail anticipates later costs: $1,477,123 in general revenue ($1,485,948 from all funds) and 10.5 full-time-equivalent staff positions in fiscal 2029; then $1,378,642 in general revenue ($1,387,415 from all funds) and the same staffing level going forward. It assumes preparatory work in 2026–28 can use existing resources. Penalty revenue cannot be estimated, and no significant local-government fiscal impact is anticipated. These are estimates, not an appropriation or a claim that the law is permanently cost-free. Final conference fiscal note.
Patients and researchers may gain comparable price information from additional covered facilities after the transition, while facilities bear data-publication and compliance work. The $10 million threshold reduces state-law obligations for smaller facilities but also limits the information available under this chapter. Published charges do not by themselves guarantee a patient’s final out-of-pocket bill or lower prices. This briefing does not certify a particular facility’s revenue, compliance or obligations under separate federal 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.
