HB474 Summary

• Exempts programs operated by legally established churches or religious nonprofit organizations from certification and licensure requirements for providing care or treatment of mental or emotional illness or services to individuals with intellectual disabilities.

• Defines "non-clinical religious treatment or care" as treatment based exclusively on religious interventions including prayer, moral guidance, spiritual counseling, worship, and religious instruction rather than clinical methods.

• Requires exempt programs to acknowledge their religious nature in official documents, base treatment exclusively on religious beliefs without clinical care, and refrain from employing disease models or assigning clinical diagnoses.

• Prohibits exempt programs from maintaining clinical treatment records, conducting clinical assessments, or marketing services as clinical treatment for substance-related disorders.

• Becomes effective on the first day of the third month following passage and approval by the Governor.