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Yes: 474 • No: 192
MinnesotaHF 211594th Legislature, 2025-2026HouseWALLET
Human services policy bill.
Sponsored By: Joe Schomacker (Republican)
Became Law
Human Services Finance and PolicyRules and Administration for comparison with SF2443
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
45 provisions identified: 24 benefits, 6 costs, 15 mixed.
Covered services continue during court appeals
Beginning July 1, 2025, covered services or assistance must continue to be provided or paid during a district court appeal. This applies after a department or the Direct Care and Treatment board issues an opinion on a covered local-agency submission. The protection covers the services or assistance included in that submission and lasts while the appeal is pending or underway.
More rights for substance treatment clients
Patient-rights rules now cover residential, outpatient, and community-based substance use disorder treatment. Resident-rights rules also cover specified licensed withdrawal management, residential substance treatment, intensive residential treatment, crisis stabilization, and detoxification programs. Treatment records must show that clients receive rights, grievance, and opioid information on the day services begin. Tuberculosis and HIV information must arrive within 72 hours. Abuse prevention orientation is due within 24 hours of admission, or within 72 hours when a later orientation benefits the client.
Residential treatment rights protect more children
Beginning July 1, 2025, patient-rights protections cover minors admitted to qualifying residential programs. These include hospital-based primary treatment programs for minors with emotional disturbance and state-licensed facilities serving minors around the clock. Protections include written rights information, advocacy information, grievance procedures, and written treatment plans. The law also limits restraint and isolation.
School grants support youth behavioral health
Minnesota must establish behavioral health grants for youth attending qualifying intermediate school districts. Eligible applicants include those districts and qualified partners or providers with demonstrated ability to serve the youth. Grants can fund identification, treatment, therapeutic services, family support, transportation, school capacity, and telehealth. District allocations follow average daily enrollment in federal instructional level 4 or higher settings; no total grant amount is stated. Grantees must seek available third-party payment but serve students regardless of health coverage or ability to pay.
State treatment admissions get firm deadlines
Covered civilly committed patients from jails or correctional institutions, and competency-treatment or examination referrals, must be admitted within 48 hours. For bed availability, that clock starts when the executive medical director or designee finds a medically appropriate bed. Covered secure-treatment and less-restrictive commitments are prioritized by waiting time, medical needs, discharge status, safety, treatment access, delay impacts, and federal requirements. After choosing appropriate programs, the director's office must notify the referral source, county, patient, and issuing district court within four business days. Once a bed is identified, it must notify the designated agency and waiting facility of acceptance and the earliest admission date. The agency or facility responsible for transport must move the patient within 48 hours after the offered admission date.
Mental health urgent care program ends
The law repeals the mental health urgent care and psychiatric consultation program. This includes rapid access to psychiatry and collaborative consultation. People who relied on the program may lose that route to care. The supplied provision names no replacement service or repeal date.
Benefit kickbacks face crimes and payment bans
Child care assistance applicants, participants, and providers cannot trade payments for improper access to benefits, including selling a family's subsidy access. Providers found responsible for intentional violations face a three-year payment ban for a first offense and a permanent ban for later offenses. Beginning August 1, 2025, intentional kickbacks, bribes, and rebates tied to covered federal health, state behavioral health, or child care assistance benefits are crimes. Related service claims cannot be paid or enforced and are treated as false or fraudulent claims. Exceptions preserve specified federal exemptions, bona fide employee pay, permitted child care discounts, scholarships, and family assistance; child-benefiting promotional offers remain allowed under the child care rule.
Care approvals last, with safety exceptions
Later coverage or clinical-rule changes generally cannot affect an existing prior approval until the next plan year. For fee-for-service Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare, protection lasts until the next calendar year. For health plans offered, sold, issued, or renewed on or after January 1, 2026, an independent recommendation can permit a change because of previously unknown, imminent patient harm. The law also lists December 31, 2025, as the expiration of a separate patient-harm exception for plans offered or renewed on or after January 1, 2026.
Required personal details for opioid treatment
Opioid treatment programs must report client details at admission and discharge, using the commissioner's reporting method. Details include names and aliases, birth and admission dates, other opioid program enrollment, and Social Security or Alien Registration numbers, if any. Clients cannot participate without providing the required information, but photo ID and driver's license numbers are no longer required. Programs must keep the original information and record the submission date. Reporting no longer depends on changes to the registry or creation of an electronic reporting system.
Free fishing licenses for eligible residents
Beginning July 1, 2025, eligible institutional residents may receive a free fishing license. They must be wards of the human services commissioner and live in a state institution controlled by Direct Care and Treatment. The human services commissioner must apply for the license.
Service facilities add training and visible warnings
Covered licensed programs must train responsible employees, subcontractors, and volunteers on the program's drug and alcohol policy before direct client contact. Facilities with conditional certification must post the commissioner's order where clients and visitors can see it. The order must remain posted for the full conditional certification period. Any accompanying maltreatment investigation memorandum must also be posted.
Child supervision during short treatment visits
Covered substance use treatment providers are exempt from specified child-care standards when supervising a child for less than three hours daily. The parent must remain in the same building or an adjoining building. A staff member trained in CPR and first aid must stay present and responsible for the child. That staff member must be able to contact the parent immediately at all times.
Children's case management gets clearer standards
Case managers for children with severe emotional disturbance can qualify as mental health practitioners or through a bachelor's degree in behavioral sciences or a related field. Other applicants must meet a specified alternative path, and applicable experience, training, supervision, and continuing-education rules remain. A mental health professional must supervise covered children's services, including case-manager oversight. The professional must cosign the treatment plan and be named in the child's file. Case managers must complete a written functional assessment when both the child and parent or legal guardian consent.
Commissioner can manage more patients' benefits
Beginning July 1, 2025, the human services commissioner may receive and pay out certain benefits on patients' behalf. These include Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance, veterans benefits, pensions, and similar money due to patients. The authority is no longer limited to specified state hospital residents during hospitalization or provisional discharge. Benefit amounts and eligibility do not change.
Disability case managers face annual skill checks
Beginning August 1, 2025, case managers serving covered home and community-based waiver recipients must train annually on informed decision-making. They must also pass an annual competency test on those topics. The human services commissioner determines the test's form.
Faster planning and credit for opioid treatment
Opioid treatment programs must finish individual treatment plans within 14 days after services begin, down from 21 days. Programs may count earlier treatment toward both the 10-week weekly plan-review period and the 10-week nonmedication treatment period. The client must transfer directly from another Minnesota-licensed program and miss no daily opioid treatment medication dose. The new program must obtain prior treatment days, the discharge summary, daily medication dose, and three previous drug test results.
More cross-border treatment options for residents
Beginning July 1, 2025, county boards, the human services commissioner, and the Direct Care and Treatment board can arrange cross-border care. They can contract with bordering-state agencies or facilities for mental health, substance use, or detox services for Minnesota residents. Contracts remain subject to other laws and the exceptions in section 245.50, subdivision 3. Patients must be told the relevant consequences, including that the other state's laws generally apply.
Some disqualified workers can serve specific recipients
The commissioner can allow a disqualified person to serve one specific recipient while keeping the disqualification in place elsewhere. This authority now covers financial management services, community first services and supports, unlicensed home and community-based services, and consumer-directed community supports organizations. The exception is not a general clearance to serve everyone.
State treatment planning gets standard rules
Beginning July 1, 2025, the Direct Care and Treatment board must set standard admission and continued-stay rules for state-operated facilities. The rules must support appropriate care in the least restrictive setting and be shared periodically with courts and counties. For covered admission referrals, hospitals, treatment facilities, jails, and correctional facilities must provide medical and behavioral records when requested for admission planning. This applies to facilities that cared for or supervised the patient during the previous two years. The treatment facility or executive board must request the records.
Some state job seekers get travel reimbursement
Beginning July 1, 2025, the Direct Care and Treatment board may repay necessary travel costs to and from interviews it arranges. Applicants must be seeking professional, administrative, or highly technical positions. Reimbursement is optional, and the law sets no payment amount.
Adult foster providers lose extra licensing
Qualifying providers licensed under chapter 245B no longer need the additional community residential setting license described in this provision. The repeal covers providers that provide, contract for, or arrange services in licensed adult foster care settings. Providers must also meet the specified statutory definition.
Appeals gain independence and staff privacy
The Direct Care and Treatment board cannot make rules controlling human services judges' decisions or processes. It also cannot control the commissioner's advisory opinions or recommended orders, or specified review procedures outside the board's authority. Personal-information protections extend to current and retired judges and current Human Services Appeals Division employees.
Higher-risk offender notices use shared information
Beginning July 1, 2025, police can use state-agency information about offending patterns or victim preferences for risk-level II notices. The information can come from Corrections, Human Services, or Direct Care and Treatment. Residential facility leaders must report required residence and relocation details through the appropriate commissioner or board to law enforcement. These reporting procedures cover predatory offenders assigned risk level II or III.
State board can seek Native welfare grants
Beginning July 1, 2025, the Direct Care and Treatment board can contract for federal welfare and relief grants benefiting Minnesota Indians. Eligible federal partners are Health and Human Services, Education, and the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs. The authority does not set grant amounts or create direct payments to individuals.
Child care fraud faces expanded penalties
The law expands the offense of wrongfully obtaining assistance to cover prohibited provider payments, including kickbacks. It also covers submitting or helping submit willfully false child care assistance claims. The conduct must involve intent to defeat the assistance programs' purposes.
Opioid programs gain another dispensing option
Minnesota-licensed opioid treatment programs can follow the specified practitioner-dispensing rules instead of holding a Board of Pharmacy license. Programs must keep a signed statement from each practitioner responsible for following those rules.
Special fund supports people with developmental disabilities
The Direct Care and Treatment board must deposit money received for people with developmental disabilities into a special welfare fund. The fund is held through the commissioner of management and budget. Each year, the fund's balance is appropriated to the board for authorized purposes. Money must benefit people with developmental disabilities, including people in state hospitals; related research is allowed. The law states no fund balance or fixed dollar amount.
Disability day services get state-set rates
Beginning January 1, 2026, the state must set rates for all day training and habilitation services, including related transportation. This replaces the duty to set a statewide rate-setting method; the law gives no specific rates. Beginning July 1, 2025, state need reviews exclude adult day services and cover programs in facilities licensed under the specified day-service rules. Providers do not need a new need review solely because their name or ownership changes.
Emergency relative placements lose training waiver
Beginning January 1, 2026, a child seat safety checkup no longer supports a training waiver for emergency relative placements. Relatives accepting these placements must meet the applicable training requirements.
Public health coverage review requirements narrow
Beginning January 1, 2026, one listed utilization review requirement no longer applies to the commissioner for Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare services. The removed requirement is section 62M.18. The supplied provision does not explain that requirement or identify a change to any person's benefit amount.
Family programs must renew expired licenses
Covered family programs must meet renewal requirements and obtain a reissued license to operate after their current license expires. Child foster care providers must apply for and receive a new license. Before the provider licensing and reporting hub starts, child foster care licenses can last up to two years. After the hub starts, covered licenses may be issued each calendar year.
State treatment authorities face statutory repeals
The law removes a provision authorizing state-run consultation for courts and welfare agencies, placement supervision, aftercare, and related fee-based services. That repeal also removes related mental health education and fund-administration authority; it does not state that all services must stop. Beginning July 1, 2025, the law also repeals sections 245.4862, 246.015 subdivision 3, 246.50 subdivision 2, and 246B.04 subdivision 1a. It also repeals Laws 2024, chapter 79, article 1, sections 15 through 17. The supplied repeal list does not explain all resulting household effects.
Counties lose shares of hospital recoveries
Beginning July 1, 2025, county recovery-retention rules exclude covered recoveries involving the Direct Care and Treatment State Hospital Collections Unit. This includes specified public assistance, Medical Assistance, and MinnesotaCare recoveries collected and posted by counties. The usual rule lets a directly responsible county keep one-half of its nonfederal share from recipient or estate recoveries. Exceptions also cover medical-provider recoveries and specified Human Services units. These changes affect county proceeds, not a new household repayment duty.
Firearm checks use treatment board records
Covered firearm applicants authorize release of relevant commitment records held by the Direct Care and Treatment board. Police chiefs and sheriffs obtain those records from the board for covered pistol and semiautomatic military-style assault weapon checks. Carry-permit checks also use comparable out-of-state commitment records when reasonably available. Consent to release alcohol or drug treatment records must meet federal requirements. These provisions change record sources, not the stated firearm eligibility criteria.
Child care adds safety training safeguards
Beginning January 1, 2026, covered programs must document passenger-restraint training for children younger than nine, rather than eight. Certified-center directors, staff, substitutes, and unsupervised volunteers must complete pediatric first aid and CPR training before unsupervised child contact. The deadline is also no later than 90 days after first direct contact, with training renewed every two years. Training covers cardiac emergencies, choking, bleeding, fractures and sprains, head injuries, poisoning, and burns; nationally recognized, evidence-based guidelines qualify. Licensed programs must document yearly emergency-plan reviews and updates, and certified centers must add written health and safety policies.
Less repeat paperwork, individual recovery support
Counselors may reuse a comprehensive assessment, even when it did not authorize the treatment service now provided. They must review and update it as clinically needed within required deadlines, then sign and date the review and update. Transfers between licensed sites run by the same license holder do not require new documents or a repeated full orientation. Clients still receive information about the new site's grievance process, abuse prevention plan, and maltreatment reporting. Peer recovery support must be one-to-one and face-to-face with a qualified peer; Internet delivery can count as face-to-face.
Treatment center discharge waits for review
Beginning July 1, 2025, regional treatment center patients cannot be discharged while a covered dispute or requested review remains unresolved. A center's chief executive officer, program director, or county agency may request review by the Direct Care and Treatment board. The rule keeps care in place during review but can delay discharge. This provision sets no review deadline.
Welfare investigators gain data disclosure safeguards
Beginning July 1, 2025, designated state leaders can block certain welfare investigative data disclosures that could harm an ongoing investigation. These leaders are the Human Services and Children, Youth, and Families commissioners and the Direct Care and Treatment board. The restriction applies to the disclosure exception for government agents or investigators.
Care programs expand background check oversight
Beginning July 1, 2025, probation or corrections staff must report disqualifying convictions involving people affiliated with covered licensed care programs. Covered programs are licensed by Human Services, Children, Youth, and Families, or Health. Also beginning that date, background-study data sharing extends to services whose license holder is Children, Youth, and Families or Direct Care and Treatment. The commissioner can review prosecutor and law enforcement arrest or investigative information when there is reasonable cause to connect it to disqualification. County sheriffs are no longer separately listed as an information source.
Health boards gain investigative record access
Beginning July 1, 2025, covered licensing investigators can obtain relevant health records from Direct Care and Treatment, including without consent where authorized. Requests must be written and meet each profession's legal grounds; dentistry follows its separate required process. Pharmacy requests require a complaint and probable cause of the specified violation, and records must stay limited to that complaint. Direct Care and Treatment must respond, and records remain private where the applicable provision requires it. Specified releases receive liability protection, except for information known or reasonably believed to be false.
Agencies share service data with safeguards
Beginning July 1, 2025, Human Services, Health, Direct Care and Treatment, and the mental health and developmental disabilities ombudsman can arrange electronic data exchanges. Agreements can cover provider and individual data for provider enrollment, quality management, eligibility, and federal reporting. They must protect anonymity and specify permitted data uses and access. Electronic systems must follow those safeguards and applicable federal health privacy rules.
Counselors gain duties and training rules
Temporary-permit substance use counselors can complete assessments, treatment plans, plan reviews, and discharge summaries. An assigned licensed alcohol and drug counselor must supervise them, with supervision documented at least weekly. Alternatively, a board-approved clinical supervisor can supervise them under the required documentation rules. Counselors treating adolescents must finish 30 hours of interactive or classroom training, or one three-credit college course, within six months of first providing adolescent treatment. Reading alone does not qualify; qualified mental health professionals are exempt, and the former 150-hour supervised-experience rule is removed.
Disability crisis help shifts toward community services
Within available funding, regional teams must help counties, Tribal Nations, providers, families, and people with disabilities prevent or resolve crises. The goal is to avoid moves to less integrated settings. The law removes required crisis capacity at every regional treatment center campus serving people with developmental disabilities. It allows, but does not require, capacity for 16 people in the Twin Cities area. Beginning July 1, 2025, the state must set county targets to limit and reduce intermediate-care beds, consistent with approved federal waivers and least-restrictive care. When choosing community program sites, the Direct Care and Treatment board must prioritize services over beds for complex behavioral needs private providers cannot meet, coordinating locations with the human services commissioner.
Treatment programs change drug and session records
Substance use treatment programs must keep written drug-control policies and a record system accounting for Schedule II through V drugs. The law removes the specific requirement to account for those drugs each shift. When a guest speaker presents during treatment, the counselor must record the speaker's name and service date. The record must also include the presentation's start and end times and a topic summary.
State treatment fees fall, construction constrained
Beginning July 1, 2025, Direct Care and Treatment board applications to license state institutions are exempt from hospital and nursing home application fees. Separately, the board cannot use its special welfare fund to build structures or installations needing ongoing state operation or upkeep spending. A specific legislative enactment must authorize those projects.
Sponsors & Cosponsors
Sponsor
Joe Schomacker
Republican • House
Cosponsors
Dawn Gillman
Republican • House
Hoffman
Affiliation unavailable
Heather Keeler
Democratic • House
Mohamud Noor
Democratic • House
Bianca Virnig
Democratic • House
Roll Call Votes
House vote • 5/19/2025
Repassage, as amended by Conference
Yes: 124 • No: 10
Senate vote • 5/19/2025
Third Reading
Yes: 55 • No: 8
House vote • 5/18/2025
Schomacker motion - Adoption
Yes: 67 • No: 67
Senate vote • 5/7/2025
Third Reading
Yes: 35 • No: 32
Senate vote • 5/7/2025
Amendment: Rasmusson (A51) amendment to the Maye Quade (A50) amendment
Yes: 33 • No: 34
Senate vote • 5/7/2025
Amendment: Maye Quade (A50) amendment, as amended
Yes: 39 • No: 28
House vote • 5/5/2025
Passage, as amended
Yes: 121 • No: 13
Actions Timeline
Secretary of State Chapter 38
5/23/2025SenateGovernor's action Approval
5/23/2025SenatePresentment date
5/20/2025SenateThird Reading Repassed vote: 55-8
5/19/2025SenateSenate adopted CC report and repassed bill
5/19/2025SenateConference committee report, delete everythingc
5/19/2025SenateHouse adopted HCC report and repassed bill
5/19/2025SenateSenate adopted conference committee report, bill repassed vote: 55-8
5/19/2025HouseBill was repassed as amended by Conference vote: 124-10
5/19/2025HouseThird reading as amended by Conference
5/19/2025HouseHouse adopted conference committee report
5/19/2025HouseConference committee report, delete everythingc
5/19/2025HouseMotion prevailed
5/18/2025HouseMotion for reconsideration
5/18/2025HouseMotion did not prevail vote: 67-67
5/18/2025HouseMotion to adopt conference committee report
5/18/2025HouseConference committee report, delete everythingc
5/18/2025HouseSenate conferees Hoffman; Fateh; Maye Quade; Rassmuson; Abeler
5/9/2025HouseSenate accedes, conference committee of 5 be appointed
5/9/2025HouseSenate conferees Hoffman; Fateh; Maye Quade; Rassmuson; Abeler
5/8/2025SenateSenate accedes, CC of 5 be appointed
5/8/2025SenateHouse conferees Schomaker; Gander; Noor; Frederick
5/8/2025SenateHouse not concur, conference committee requested
5/8/2025SenateThird reading Passed as amended vote: 35-32
5/7/2025SenateSpecial Order: Amendeda
5/7/2025Senate
Bill Text
1st Engrossment
2nd Engrossment
3rd Engrossment
Introduction
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