Author: A. Ant, CADC-II, Licensing & Accreditation Expert
Disclaimer: This content is provided for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, regulatory, or licensing advice. Requirements change frequently. Consult qualified professionals for guidance specific to your situation.
In Kansas, the agency that licenses a psychiatric bed depends on the building around it. K.A.R. 30-22-5 says “The responsibility for licensing psychiatric wards of general hospitals rests with the Kansas state department of health and environment,” while a freestanding private psychiatric hospital is licensed by the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS). The same rule says private in-patient psychiatric facilities may be licensed to serve “the full range of psychiatric patients.” It began as an emergency rule in February 1970 and was last amended in October 1991, and it is still what KDADS posts as its private psychiatric hospital regulations. A third 24-hour option, the crisis intervention center, only got its permanent rules in June 2024.
Three Places a Kansas Psychiatric Bed Can Sit
Each cell restates the statute, rule or KDADS form it relies on. Cells that say “none found” are our reading of what those sources leave out.
| Item | Private psychiatric hospital | Psychiatric ward of a general hospital | Crisis intervention center |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licensing agency | KDADS | KDHE, through hospital licensing (K.A.R. 30-22-5) | KDADS |
| Law and rules | K.S.A. 39-2001 and following, K.A.R. 30-22 | Hospital licensing, outside this guide | K.S.A. 39-2001 and following, K.S.A. 59-29c02, K.A.R. 26-52 |
| License term | Two years, unless revoked for cause (K.A.R. 30-22-6) | Not covered here | Renewal filed at least 45 days before expiration |
| State fee | None found in K.A.R. 30-22 or on the KDADS application | Not covered here | $100 plus $30 per licensed bed, annual (K.A.R. 26-52-2) |
| Review clock | Approval or disapproval recommended within 60 days of filing | Not covered here | None stated in the sections we read |
| Who can apply | No limit stated in the sections we read | A licensed hospital | A government entity or a private entity in good standing with the Kansas Secretary of State |
| Certificate of Need | None (repealed 1997) | None | None |
Licensing a Private Psychiatric Hospital
Rule history and form dates are as printed on rules.ks.gov and on the KDADS forms. The point about the repealed authority statute is our observation.
The license requirement itself sits in K.S.A. 39-2006, which makes it unlawful to operate a center, facility or hospital without a license from the secretary. K.S.A. 39-2002 defines a psychiatric hospital as an institution other than a state institution, licensed under the secretary’s rules. Those rules are still the SRS-era article 30-22, and K.A.R. 30-22-5 lists its authority as K.S.A. 75-3307b, a statute the Kansas code now describes in K.S.A. 59-29b46 as repealed. Our reading is that the 2016 act carries the licensing duty today while the 1991 rule text carries the detail, so a policy manual should cite both.
The practical sequence looks like this. KDADS posts an Application for New Facility (updated December 11, 2024) and a renewal form (updated August 26, 2025), both naming Behavioral Health Services Licensing Manager Wendy Jacobs at 503 S. Kansas Avenue, Topeka, 785.596.3161, Wendy.Jacobs@ks.gov. Under K.S.A. 39-2008 the license issues only with the approval of the State Fire Marshal, it states the type of facility and the number of individuals served, and it cannot be transferred or assigned. Renewal goes in 45 days before the two-year license runs out (K.A.R. 30-22-6), although KDADS’s August 2025 renewal form ties its 45-day deadline to the scheduled licensure visit instead, so track both dates. If a hospital is not ready for a full license, K.S.A. 39-2012 allows a provisional license of no more than six months, with one more six-month provisional at the agency’s discretion, also subject to Fire Marshal approval. A change of ownership does not extend it.
One thing Kansas does not give these hospitals, as far as we found, is a licensing benefit for accreditation. K.S.A. 39-2008 grants accreditation-based renewal to community mental health centers, and K.S.A. 65-4014 does something similar for substance use programs, but neither the hospital rules we read nor the 2016 act’s licensing sections extend that to a private psychiatric hospital.
Crisis Intervention Centers and Other 24-Hour Settings
K.S.A. 59-29c02 defines a crisis intervention center as an entity licensed by KDADS that is “open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year” and that uses certified peer specialists, and K.S.A. 39-2002 adds that it is equipped to serve voluntary and involuntary individuals. The rules in K.A.R. 26-52 took effect as temporary regulations on February 16 and June 10, 2024 and as permanent ones on June 28, 2024. K.A.R. 26-52-2 sets the fee at $100 plus $30 per licensed bed each year, and KDADS posts a new application, a renewal application, required forms and a program change form for these centers. A center that also treats substance use follows K.A.R. 26-52-17, which adopts KDADS standards for crisis center SUD programs, references ASAM criteria and requires written policies on detoxification and medication-assisted treatment.
The 2016 act also covers residential care facilities, including crisis residential care facilities. We have not reviewed the rules for those settings, so if your model is a staffed residence rather than a hospital or a crisis center, ask KDADS Behavioral Health Licensing which license type it fits before you commit to a building.
Ketamine During a Kansas Psychiatric Admission
Ketamine is not mentioned in K.A.R. 30-22, K.A.R. 26-52 or the 2016 act. What follows is our reading of Kansas pharmacy, nursing and corporate practice law and the federal sources listed at the end.
Of the three settings above, a private psychiatric hospital is the one with the medical staff, pharmacy and nursing structure to begin a ketamine or esketamine series. A crisis intervention center exists to stabilize people quickly, and in our view a multi-week course of treatment does not fit that purpose. Ketamine is a Schedule III depressant under 21 CFR 1308.13(c)(7), so the hospital needs a DEA registration for its location (21 CFR 1301.12 requires one for each principal place of practice). Kansas adds its own layer in K.S.A. 65-4116, which requires anyone who dispenses controlled substances to “obtain annually a registration issued by the board” of pharmacy, while treating a Board of Healing Arts license as compliance for that practitioner’s own practice location. How that applies to a hospital’s own stock is a question for the Board of Pharmacy.
Nursing is the open point. The Kansas State Board of Nursing has a 2014 position statement letting registered nurses give intravenous agents to produce moderate sedation under a physician’s order, once education and competence are documented, but it names no drugs, and we found no Board statement on ketamine at all. A hospital planning nurse-run infusions should write its protocol against that statement and, before the first dose, ask the Board whether subanesthetic ketamine for depression falls inside it. For Spravato, the FDA label says the drug “is only available through a restricted program called the SPRAVATO Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS)” and that the provider “must monitor you for at least 2 hours after taking SPRAVATO.” A unit offering it enrolls in the REMS and staffs that observation window.
Crisis centers and many psychiatric hospitals serve people who did not admit themselves. We have not analyzed how the Kansas care and treatment statutes treat consent for something like ketamine. Until counsel has, keep the program to adults who came in voluntarily and can consent on their own behalf, and leave any wider use for hospital counsel to rule on.
Handing the Series to an Outpatient Prescriber
Few series finish inside one admission. Pick the outpatient prescriber before discharge day, and with the patient’s written authorization, let the dosing log and a brief response note travel with the discharge summary. That prescriber may well be an APRN, since K.A.R. 60-11-101 has authorized APRNs since October 14, 2022 to make “independent decisions” about advanced practice nursing needs and medical decisions, and 60-11-104a lets them prescribe controlled substances under the uniform controlled substances act. Attorney General Opinion 2026-7 (March 23, 2026), an advisory opinion requested by counsel for the Board of Pharmacy, concludes that an APRN or PA needs a Kansas license to prescribe here. Doses given in the office are generally outside K-TRACS reporting, because the dispenser definition K-TRACS quotes from K.S.A. 65-1682 leaves out a practitioner who administers the drug.
Ownership of that outpatient practice is settled in a way it is not in many states. In Early Detection Center, Inc. v. Wilson, 248 Kan. 869 (1991), the Kansas Supreme Court held that “A general corporation is prohibited from providing medical services or acting through licensed practitioners.” A physician-owned professional corporation, whose shares K.S.A. 17-2712 limits to licensed qualified persons, is the usual answer. Kansas Drug and Alcohol Outpatient Treatment Licensing lays out how a stand-alone clinic is structured around that rule.
Budgeting Clinical Staff for a Kansas Psychiatric Unit
A psychiatric hospital’s largest line is nursing, but therapists and counselors are where owners have the most choice. Kansas counselors in the BLS substance abuse, behavioral disorder and mental health category earned a $59,470 median in the May 2025 OEWS release, with $44,370 marking the 25th percentile and $73,630 the 75th, which leaves the state about $120 ahead of the $59,350 national figure. Staff a unit with five such clinicians at that median and base pay alone runs about $297,350 a year by our math, before any benefits. That figure assumes every seat is filled at full licensed pay, and a Kansas unit does not have to staff it that way. For co-occurring caseloads, the BSRB’s LCAC credential requires 3,000 hours of supervised postgraduate experience, so a hospital can bring on LACs or LMACs who are accumulating those hours under an LCAC supervisor at lower wages, which commonly takes 40 to 60 percent off that part of the clinical payroll compared with hiring only fully licensed counselors. The BSRB’s separate tracks for social workers, professional counselors and psychologists sit outside this budget example. On the nursing side, an RN leading LPNs on each shift costs less than an RN-only floor. How many beds open, and how acute the admissions run, will settle the true headcount.
What Stalls Kansas Psychiatric Inpatient Projects
The first stall is the wrong agency. A hospital system that wants a behavioral health wing inside its general hospital builds a KDADS application, then learns that K.A.R. 30-22-5 sends psychiatric wards of general hospitals to KDHE. The second is the Fire Marshal. Both the full license and any provisional license under the 2016 act wait on State Fire Marshal approval, so a building that has not been through that review is not close to opening, however complete the policy manual is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who licenses a psychiatric hospital in Kansas?
KDADS licenses private psychiatric hospitals under K.S.A. 39-2001 and the rules in K.A.R. 30-22. A psychiatric ward inside a general hospital is different, because K.A.R. 30-22-5 places the licensing of those wards with KDHE. KDADS also licenses crisis intervention centers under K.A.R. 26-52.
How long is a Kansas private psychiatric hospital license good for?
Two years unless revoked for cause, under K.A.R. 30-22-6, with the renewal due 45 days before the license expires. A provisional license under K.S.A. 39-2012 lasts no more than six months, with one more six-month provisional possible at KDADS discretion, and every license or provisional license needs State Fire Marshal approval.
What does a Kansas crisis intervention center license cost?
K.A.R. 26-52-2 sets an annual fee of $100 plus $30 for each licensed bed, so a 16-bed center pays $580 a year. The applicant must be a government entity or a private entity in good standing with the Kansas Secretary of State, and renewal goes in at least 45 days before the license expires.
Working out whether a Kansas inpatient project belongs with KDADS or KDHE? Send us the details.
Sources
- KDADS Behavioral Health Licensing (private psychiatric hospital and crisis intervention center forms): Behavioral Health Licensing (checked October 16, 2026)
- KDADS, private psychiatric hospital Application for New Facility (updated 12/11/2024) and Renewal Application (updated 8/26/2025): PPH new application and PPH renewal (checked October 16, 2026)
- KDADS, PPH Regulations (K.A.R. 30-22): PPH Regulations (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.A.R. 30-22-5 and 30-22-6: 30-22-5 and 30-22-6 (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.A.R. 26-52-2 and 26-52-17 (crisis intervention centers): 26-52-2 and 26-52-17 (checked October 16, 2026)
- KDADS, crisis intervention center new application and renewal: CIC new application and CIC renewal (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.S.A. 39-2002, 39-2006, 39-2008: 39-2002, 39-2006, 39-2008 (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.S.A. 39-2012 (provisional license): 39-2012 (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.S.A. 59-29c02 and 59-29b46: 59-29c02 and 59-29b46 (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.S.A. 65-4014 (SUD accreditation-based licensing): 65-4014 (checked October 16, 2026)
- 1997 Session Laws ch. 16 (HB 2182, CON repeal): Chapter 16 (checked October 16, 2026)
- 21 CFR 1308.13(c)(7) and 21 CFR 1301.12, via Cornell LII: Schedule III and Separate registration for each location (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.S.A. 65-4116 (Board of Pharmacy registration): 65-4116 (checked October 16, 2026)
- Kansas State Board of Nursing, IV conscious sedation position statement (approved March 25, 2014): Position statement (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
- U.S. FDA, Spravato label (revised 09/2026): Spravato label (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.A.R. 60-11-101 and 60-11-104a (APRN authority): 60-11-101 and 60-11-104a (checked October 16, 2026)
- Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2026-7: AG Opinion 2026-7 (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
- K-TRACS, reporting requirements (K.S.A. 65-1682 dispenser definition): Reporting to K-TRACS (checked October 16, 2026)
- Early Detection Center, Inc. v. Wilson, 248 Kan. 869 (1991), via OpenJurist mirror: Opinion (checked October 16, 2026)
- K.S.A. 17-2712 (professional corporation shares): 17-2712 (checked October 16, 2026)
- BSRB, addiction counselors: Addiction Counselors, and K.S.A. 65-6610 via Justia mirror: 65-6610 (checked October 16, 2026)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, Kansas, SOC 21-1018: Kansas OEWS and national estimates (checked October 16, 2026)
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