2025 Oklahoma legislative session: Mental health bills to watch

January 31, 2025

This year, the Oklahoma Legislature has new leaders in the House and Senate, dozens of new lawmakers, and new opportunities to address our state’s mental health and substance use challenges.  

Healthy Minds works with policymakers to promote legislation that helps Oklahomans access the behavioral health care they need, where they need it. Lawmakers filed a record number of bills ahead of the 2025 legislative session, showing a renewed focus on youth mental health, criminal justice diversion, and other key mental health issues.  

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Healthy Minds’ legislative priorities

Transparency around mental health access in the Medicaid system

Oklahoma has made significant progress on ensuring parity between mental and physical health care through commercial insurance in recent years. HB 2049, by Rep. Preston Stinson (R-Edmond), would create necessary transparency around access to mental health and substance use treatment through Medicaid by aligning parity reporting requirements for Medicaid managed care organizations with the requirements that already apply to commercial insurers. Through public parity reporting, the state can ensure managed care organizations are held accountable for providing access to behavioral health services.  

Fact sheet: HB 2049

Joining an interstate license compact for social workers  

Oklahoma has a critical shortage of social workers, with the state’s supply meeting only two-thirds of the estimated need. By passing HB 2261 by Rep. Nicole Miller (R-Edmond) and Sen. Paul Rosino (R-Oklahoma City), Oklahoma would join the Social Work Licensure Compact, allowing social workers with a license from any compact member state to practice in Oklahoma. In doing so, Oklahoma could more easily recruit providers from other states and increase its number of practicing social workers. The bill would preserve Oklahoma’s authority over social workers in Oklahoma, regardless of what state issued their license.

Fact sheet: HB 2261

Improving counties’ access to mental health and diversion grants  

A strong community mental health system can prevent unnecessary involvement with the criminal legal system, keeping people out of jails and prisons. In 2016, voters passed State Questions 780 and 781, which directed the state to reclassify some simple drug possession and low-level property crimes as misdemeanors — and pass along the cost savings from fewer incarcerations to counties through the County Community Safety Investment Fund. SB 251, by Sen. Todd Gollihare (R-Kellyville), clarifies guidelines for the use of this funding, which counties must spend on mental health, substance use, and criminal justice diversion programs. The bill also sets a minimum allocation for counties during each award cycle, ensuring that smaller counties receive meaningful funding to implement these initiatives.  

Fact sheet: SB 251


Criminal justice and care for people in crisis

Mental health competency evaluation and restoration

Lawmakers will consider a proposed consent decree to resolve a lawsuit over long wait times for Oklahomans in the criminal legal system who need competency restoration services before their cases can proceed. Both the House and the Senate must approve the consent decree before it can become official. SB 811 by Sen. Julie Daniels (R-Bartlesville) would establish a pilot program for community-based competency restoration.  

Related: Understanding the competency evaluation and restoration process for Oklahoma criminal defendants

Data to support diversion efforts

HB 2186 by Rep. Meloyde Blancett (D-Tulsa) would require county jails to collect demographic and mental health data during the jail intake process. Collecting this data could help policymakers understand trends and find opportunities for diversion for Oklahomans whose arrests were related to mental illness or substance use.

Defining a person requiring treatment

Law enforcement officers, judges, and health professionals rely on the definition of “a person requiring treatment” in state law to make determinations about when someone can be detained for an emergency mental health assessment or involuntarily hospitalized. SB 740, by Sen. Daniels, would broaden the definition by removing the requirement that people in need of treatment must be in “immediate” danger to themselves or others. The bill would also allow officials to consider whether someone is unhoused when determining if they meet the definition of “a person requiring treatment.”

Related: 2024 law modifies Oklahoma’s definition of “person requiring treatment”

Honoring treatment preferences in crisis

A mental health advanced directive is a legal document that allows people to express how they want to be treated if they are in a mental health crisis — for example, being taken to a certain crisis center or to avoid being given a specific medication. SB 937 by Sen. Brent Howard (R-Altus) and HB 1687 by Rep. Cynthia Roe (R-Lindsay) propose adopting the Uniform Health Care Decisions Act. By adopting standard language, a mental health advanced directive in Oklahoma would also be valid in other states that adopt the same law.

Crisis transportation services

SB 1036, by Sen. Dave Rader (R-Tulsa), creates the Oklahoma Triage, Treat, and Transport to Alternative Destination Act, allowing for ambulatory transport to behavioral or mental health care facilities, such as crisis stabilization units or diversion centers.

Children, youth, and mental health in schools

Youth cellphone and social media use

Several lawmakers are pursuing bills that aim to address concerns over youth mental health by curbing cellphone and social media use. Following Gov. Kevin Stitt’s challenge to schools to go phone-free, lawmakers have now proposed even stronger requirements to limit cellphone access in schools.  

Related: How restricting student cellphone use in Oklahoma schools could benefit youth mental health


SB 139
by Sen. Ally Seifried (R-Claremore) and Rep. Chad Caldwell (R-Enid) would require all districts to prohibit students from using cellphones for the entire school day, “from bell to bell,” and would set up a grant program to support schools’ implementation of these policies. Similarly, HB 1276 by Rep. Caldwell would bar students from using cellphones or smartwatches on school grounds for the entire school day.

Multiple lawmakers have proposed bills that would limit access to social media for children and youth, including:

  • HB 1275, by Rep. Caldwell, which would prohibit Oklahomans under 16 from having social media accounts, and require parental permission for 16- and 17-year-olds to have social media accounts  
  • SB 838, by Sen. Kristen Thompson (R-Edmond), which would bar Oklahomans under 16 from having social media accounts  
  • SB 839, by Sen. Thompson, which would classify social media platforms as “addictive and dangerous to mental health, especially that of minors”
  • SB 885, by Sen. Seifried, would create the “Safe Screens for Kids Act,” prohibiting Oklahomans under 18 from having social media accounts without parental permission  
  • SB 931, by Sen. Darcy Jech (R-Kingfisher), would require social media platforms to provide certain protections for users under 18

Screenings and services

SB 486 by Sen. Shane Jett (R-Shawnee) and SB 590 by Sen. Dana Prieto (R-Tulsa) would allow schools to contract with chaplains to provide support services similar to those provided by a school counselor, without a school counseling certification or master’s degree.

Rep. Dick Lowe (R-Amber) introduced HB 1523, which would create a school-based telehealth pilot program for those needing mental health services during the school day.  

Rep. Tim Turner (R-Kinta) is running HB 1998, which would require parents to opt-in rather than opt-out of their children participating in assessments at school, such as the Oklahoma Prevention and Needs Assessment (OPNA). The OPNA is one of the state’s only tools for measuring students’ mental health, alcohol and drug use, social media use, and other risk and protective factors. The state also relies on the OPNA as a data source when applying for critical funding through grants.

Sen. Dusty Deevers (R-Elgin) filed SB 1017, which would have prohibited Medicaid from covering school-based behavioral or psychological therapy for students with an individualized education program, or IEP. He has since withdrawn the bill in response to criticism.

Sen. Deevers also introduced SB 702, which would remove any reference to mental health from school-provided health education.

HB 2916 by Rep. Ajay Pittman (D-Oklahoma City) re-introduces Handle with Care Oklahoma, a program that would allow law enforcement to notify a child's school when a child is exposed to a traumatic event.


Opioids and substance use

Promoting harm reduction

HB 2012 by Rep. Daniel Pae (R-Lawton) would remove the expiration date on Oklahoma’s law that authorizes harm reduction organizations in Oklahoma. Without legislative action, the law will expire or “sunset” in 2026. Since Oklahoma legalized harm reduction services in 2021, organizations have recorded over 1,000 overdose reversals and served thousands of Oklahomans with sterile supplies, referrals to treatment, and other life-saving interventions.

Related: Analyzing the impact of SB 511, Oklahoma’s harm reduction law

Opioid abatement funding

Sen. John Haste (R-Broken Arrow) introduced a bill (SB 574) that would allow the Attorney General’s office to use up to 10% of the funds appropriated to the Oklahoma Opioid Abatement Revolving Fund for statewide opioid abatement projects that align with approved uses for the funds.

 

Behavioral health workforce

Education requirements and screenings

SB 670, by Sen. Julia Kirt (D-Oklahoma City), would require physicians to receive continuing education on integrated behavioral health care and administer mental health screenings at each routine patient visit.

Prescriptive authority for psychologists

HB 1173, by Rep. Marilyn Stark (R-Bethany), would allow psychologists who receive an additional certification the ability to prescribe psychotropic drugs, such as antidepressants or other medications used to treat mental health conditions.  

Investments in behavioral health workforce

Three lawmakers — Rep. Erick Harris (R-Edmond), Sen. Christi Gillespie (R-Broken Arrow), and Sen. Nikki Nice (D-Oklahoma City) — have each introduced bills to create a certification program for community health workers. HB 2615, SB 424, and SB 362 would be known as the Oklahoma Community Health Worker Act and would establish a voluntary certificate through the state Department of Health for frontline public health workers who serve as liaisons between community members and health and social service providers.


Access to care through insurance

Medicaid rates for youth mental health services

HB 1115, by Rep. Ronald Stewart (D-Tulsa), would require the Oklahoma Health Care Authority to increase its mental health rates by 30% for Oklahomans under 19.

Changes to step-therapy policies

HB 1808, by Rep. Carl Newton (R-Cherokee), would require insurers to make certain exceptions to their policies around step-therapy protocols. Step therapy or “fail-first” protocols refer to requirements by insurers that patients must first try and fail certain approved (and often lower-cost) drugs before insurance will pay for other ones.  SB 1064, by Sen. Rosino, would require step-therapy protocols to be no more restrictive when they are being used to treat a rare disease than for any other condition a drug may be used to treat.


Bill tracking lists

Healthy Minds tracks all Oklahoma bills related to mental health policy. A bill’s appearance on a tracking list does not indicate Healthy Minds’ support or opposition; it simply means the bill could impact mental health policy in Oklahoma.