This bill targets behavioral health workforce shortages by boosting the role, recognition, and capacity of peer support specialists—people with lived experience who support others in recovery. It frames peer work as a legitimate, evidence-informed component of care and directs federal attention to training, career pathways, and barriers that keep people with lived experience from entering the field.
For professionals: the act signals forthcoming federal guidance, a new administrative home for recovery supports inside SAMHSA, and a focused review of criminal background check practices that often block certification. Those developments will shape hiring, Medicaid participation, certification standards, and workforce data going forward.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires the Office of Management and Budget to add a Standard Occupational Classification for peer support specialists, creates an Office of Recovery within SAMHSA with responsibilities for training, technical assistance, and career pathways, and directs HHS (with DOJ coordination) to produce a report analyzing State criminal background check laws and recommending ways to reduce certification barriers.
Who It Affects
Peer support specialists and organizations that hire them; State certification bodies and Medicaid programs that set provider eligibility; SAMHSA and other federal agencies responsible for behavioral health workforce planning; and families and communities that rely on recovery supports.
Why It Matters
Formal recognition and a federal office raise the visibility, data availability, and institutional support for peer work—factors that influence reimbursement, integration into clinical teams, and recruitment/retention. The mandated review of background checks targets a specific policy obstacle that many States currently use to exclude people with criminal records from certification.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill creates a statutory definition for ‘‘peer support specialist’’ centered on lived experience—either personal recovery from a mental health condition or substance use disorder, or caregiving experience for someone who has such conditions—and ties competency to certification processes set by States or by HHS where appropriate. It anchors the scope of services to established practice guidance from the National Association of Peer Supporters and SAMHSA core competencies, making those national documents the baseline for what peer supports should include.
Separately, the measure directs OMB to add a discrete occupational code for peer support specialists to the Standard Occupational Classification system. That administrative recognition makes it easier to track employment, wages, and workforce trends for peer workers in federal data products, and it creates a platform for future workforce funding, research, and credential recognition.The bill adds an Office of Recovery inside SAMHSA, led by a Director with both lived experience and demonstrated recovery experience.
The Office is charged with leadership on best practices, technical assistance to States and tribes, training and professional development for peer workers, dissemination of standards for certification and supervision, and developing career pathway recommendations intended to improve retention and integration of peer specialists into behavioral health systems.Finally, HHS, working with the Attorney General, must produce a report that compiles evidence on the effectiveness of peer support, surveys every State’s criminal background check rules affecting certification and practice, examines Medicaid plan/waiver and grant-related screening requirements, catalogues statutory exemptions, notes States that have recently changed laws, and issues recommendations aimed at reducing barriers to certification. The report must be published and shared with State agencies, CMS, and relevant grant administrators within one year of enactment.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill defines ‘peer support specialist’ to include people with lived recovery experience and caregivers, and requires certification under State processes or as determined appropriate by HHS.
It mandates that peer support services align with the National Association of Peer Supporters’ National Practice Guidelines and SAMHSA’s Core Competencies for Peer Workers.
OMB must add a Standard Occupational Classification category for peer support specialists by January 1, 2026, enabling federal labor and wage statistics to track the occupation.
The Office of Recovery within SAMHSA must be led by a Director who has lived experience with recovery and will assume the prior Office of Recovery’s functions and resources.
HHS, coordinating with the Attorney General, must produce and publish within one year a nationwide review of State criminal background check requirements affecting peer specialist certification and recommend ways to reduce barriers.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Statutory definition and service baseline
This section sets who counts as a peer support specialist by tying the role to lived experience—either personal recovery or caregiving—and to certification. It also anchors the content of peer services to two national standards (NAPS practice guidelines and SAMHSA core competencies), which will influence training curricula, certification exam content, and employer expectations.
Occupational recognition through SOC
The bill directs OMB to add a SOC entry for peer support specialists. That administrative step is narrow but consequential: once a SOC exists, federal surveys can enumerate the workforce, track wages, and support targeted workforce grants or loan repayment programs. Employers and States may begin aligning job titles and classifications to the new code, which aids portability and labor market analysis.
Creating an Office of Recovery inside SAMHSA
The Office will centralize federal efforts on recovery supports. It must be led by someone with lived recovery experience, an explicit design choice intended to center peer perspectives in policy. The Office inherits existing recovery-related functions and is tasked with technical assistance, best-practice dissemination, training support, professional development, and career-pathway recommendations—activities that can standardize certification guidance, influence Medicaid policy, and shape grant priorities.
Nationwide review and recommendations on criminal background checks
HHS and DOJ are to produce a single report compiling evidence of peer specialists’ effectiveness and cataloging State laws and program requirements that use criminal history as a barrier to certification or practice. The required inventory is comprehensive—covering State statutes/regulations, Medicaid plan or waiver requirements, grant conditions, statutory exemptions, and recent State reforms—and must be publicly posted and distributed to CMS and relevant State agencies. The deliverable is both analytical (evidence synthesis) and prescriptive (recommendations to reduce barriers).
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Healthcare across all five countries.
Explore Healthcare in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Peer support specialists — clearer national standards, a new occupational code for recognition, and a federal office focused on training and career pathways that may improve pay, supervision, and mobility.
- Behavioral health providers and clinics — access to federal guidance and technical assistance for integrating peer roles, which can expand service capacity and diversify care teams.
- State certification bodies and workforce planners — a federal inventory of background-check practices and recommended best practices that can inform law and regulatory updates.
- Medicaid programs and policymakers — better evidence and federal coordination to decide how peer services fit into covered benefits and provider eligibility rules.
- Families and service users — anticipated expanded access to peer supports as the bill directs efforts to recruit, train, and retain peer workers.
Who Bears the Cost
- State governments and certification agencies — administrative work updating certification rules, aligning with federal guidance, and revising statutes or regulations where background-check requirements change.
- SAMHSA — responsibility for standing up the Office of Recovery and absorbing functions and personnel, which may require budgetary adjustments or re-prioritization of existing programs.
- Employers and behavioral health organizations — costs for training, supervision, certification support, and potentially higher wages or benefits to retain peer staff as professionalization increases.
- Criminal records systems and adjudicators — potential increase in requests for records reviews, petitions for relief, or mechanisms to evaluate criminal histories against new, nuanced standards.
- Federal and State Medicaid administrators — effort to reconcile provider eligibility rules and waiver requirements with the report’s recommendations, which could require policy or operational changes.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between removing barriers to employ people with lived experience—expanding access to a scarce, effective workforce—and maintaining safety and public confidence by screening for criminal histories; the bill leans toward reducing barriers through guidance and recognition, but it stops short of overriding State screening regimes, leaving implementers to balance access against safety concerns.
The bill threads several operational trade-offs that will matter in implementation. Centering national practice guidelines (NAPS and SAMHSA) provides a clear baseline for training and supervision, but it risks imposing a de facto national standard on a field that has historically emphasized peer autonomy and flexibility.
Creating an occupational code improves data and legitimacy, yet it can also accelerate credentialism—rewarding formal certification and potentially excluding informal peer roles that communities value. The Office of Recovery’s mandate to absorb prior functions and lead technical assistance is practical, but success depends on resourcing and how SAMHSA integrates lived-experience leadership with existing bureaucratic structures.
The criminal background check review aims to reduce barriers, but it will surface hard choices: some States tie provider eligibility to criminal records as part of patient safety regimes or Medicaid conditions; recommending loosening those rules invites pushback and may require new safeguards (e.g., narrow offense lists, time-limited disqualifications, individualized assessments). The bill does not itself change statutory disqualification criteria at the State level or in federal Medicaid requirements; it only produces a report and recommendations, leaving the politically complex work of statutory change to States.
That means uneven uptake is likely, and the report’s impact will depend on how persuasive and practicable its recommendations are for diverse State systems.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.