This bill adds a new section to chapter 74.39A RCW that limits how often the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) may conduct routine reviews of community residential service business providers. Except for listed exceptions, DSHS may conduct no more than one routine review per provider each year in each of these subject areas: client finances; client service plans; federal compliance reviews; client community integration; provider finances; and general quality assurance. The bill requires the department to combine review activities across subject areas where possible. The bill creates procedural requirements for DSHS to adopt administrative rules or department policies that require document and record sharing between and within department divisions during monitoring and oversight activities to minimize repeat requests to providers, while allowing exceptions for ongoing investigations or confidentiality constraints. It also explicitly excludes from the one-review-per-year limit investigations by Adult Protective Services, incident reports, complaint investigations, citation follow-up activities, mortality reviews, and monitoring or oversight activities that are required by federal or state law. This is a new statutory provision (a procedural change to oversight and monitoring), not a new crime or penalty change. The text identifies affected parties (DSHS, its divisions, community residential service business providers, and clients including persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities) but does not define the term "community residential service business provider." The bill text in the provided material does not include a rulemaking timeline, specific implementation dates, enforcement mechanisms, or details on how combined reviews or scheduling will be carried out, so those aspects are uncertain. Procedural history in the text: prefiled 01/07/26; read first time 01/12/26; referred to Committee on Human Services.

If enacted, the bill will likely reduce how often community residential service providers face routine checks by DSHS in six areas—finances, service plans, federal compliance, community integration, provider finances, and general quality assurance—because the department is limited to one routine review per provider per subject area each year and must combine review activities where possible. That should lower the time and paperwork burden on providers and reduce costs tied to repetitive reviews, while DSHS will need to spend staff time creating rules and coordinating across its divisions so reviews and documents are shared instead of repeatedly requested. The groups most affected are DSHS divisions (which must adopt policies, coordinate reviews, and may absorb initial rulemaking costs) and community residential service business providers (who will most likely see fewer duplicative reviews and associated costs). Clients with intellectual and developmental disabilities may experience less disruption from repeated oversight visits. Important uncertainties remain: the bill text doesn’t define “community residential service business provider,” it gives no timeline or details for how reviews will be combined, and the limitation does not apply to investigations, complaints, citations, mortality reviews, or monitoring required by federal or state law, so some providers may still face frequent scrutiny.