The Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council (BHEC), which helps regulate behavioral health services and social work practice providers, says it may need more support from the Texas Legislature to handle an influx of complaints. Leadership reported having about 1,000 “pending” complaints, hundreds more than in past years.
The top three categories of complaints BHEC receives are “standard of care violations, sexual misconduct and unlicensed practice,” according to BHEC’s executive director Darrel Spinks. These top three categories make up about half of the complaints the agency receives. It was “normal” for the council to receive about 600 complaints a year until fiscal year 2025, when it received about 800, and BHEC now expects to receive 1,000 complaints “in a given year.”
BHEC oversees regulations of social work practice and behavioral health services within the state, including marriage and family therapy, psychology and counseling. Every year, the workforce the agency oversees grows by about 5,000 licenses. Spinks said the agency is limited by its 12 investigators and 6 attorneys. “Candly, the legal division is kind of where the bottleneck is,” he said, “because things get much slower when the lawyers have to start reviewing the file that the investigators have prepared.”
Spinks said BHEC expects to ask for more resources during the 2027 legislative session, mainly focused on hiring more attorneys. The agency also wants to mimic other state boards like the state medical board by instituting a medical director and professional reviewers to help determine if complaints have any merit before they reach the legal team. This step aims to keep frivolous complaints from clogging the pipeline and allowing legitimate concerns to be addressed more efficiently.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2026-05-06/texas-behavioral-health-executive-council-more-resources-complaints-legislature