Kansas Drug and Alcohol Inpatient Treatment Licensing

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.

Apply now: KDADS New Program Application Packet (SUD) | Questions: KDADS Behavioral Health Services Licensing Manager, Wendy.Jacobs@ks.gov, 785-596-3161

The rulebook a Kansas residential addiction program is licensed against was written by an agency that no longer runs it. The “Standards for Licensure/Certification of Alcohol and/or Other Drug Abuse Treatment Programs” were issued by the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) on November 1, 2006, numbered R03-101 through R03-810, and the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) still links that same document as the “Standards” for substance use disorder treatment facilities. We found no Kansas Administrative Regulations article that replaced it. So when you write a policy manual for a Kansas residence, you cite R03 numbers, and you describe your beds with Kansas’s own vocabulary: social detoxification, intermediate, therapeutic community, reintegration, inpatient and acute detoxification. None of those names is an ASAM level.

The legal requirement to hold a license is in K.S.A. 65-4012, which makes running an unlicensed treatment facility a class C misdemeanor. For outpatient counseling, IOP and the assessment program, see Kansas Drug and Alcohol Outpatient Treatment Licensing. Psychiatric hospitals, CMHCs and crisis centers get their own overview on Kansas Behavioral Health Licensing.

Kansas Residential Modalities and Their Staffing Ratios

Every ratio and staffing rule in this table is quoted or summarized from the 2006 Standards document KDADS posts on its licensing page.

Modality	Standard	Staffing floor in the Standards
Social detoxification	R03-708	One qualified staff for every 10 clients in residence
Intermediate	R03-705	One qualified staff for every 8 clients in residence
Inpatient	R03-709	One qualified staff for every 8 clients, a licensed physician or nurse on site or on call, and licensed medical or nursing staff to monitor and administer medications 24 hours a day
Therapeutic community	R03-706	One qualified staff for every 15 clients in residence
Reintegration	R03-707	One qualified staff for every 15 clients in residence
Acute detoxification	R03-710	A registered nurse or licensed practical nurse on duty 24 hours a day on the unit, physician-approved policies, and a medical assessment and physical examination at admission

Five of those six (intermediate, therapeutic community, reintegration, social detox and inpatient) must “maintain sufficient employees on duty 24 hours a day,” and the Standards add that employees “shall be awake on all shifts.” A sleeping overnight tech doesn’t satisfy that in Kansas. One more box gets checked no matter which beds you run. The New Program Application lists the Alcohol and Drug Assessment and Referral Program (R03-712) as “Required by all programs,” so a residence that only plans to take referrals still builds an assessment and referral function into its manual.

The ratios are what most operators underestimate. Read as a per-shift floor, which is how we apply it, a 24-bed intermediate house at one staff per eight residents needs three qualified people awake on every shift, around the clock, before a single counseling hour is scheduled. Run the schedule against the ratio before you settle on a bed count.

Mapping Kansas Modalities to ASAM Levels

KDADS has not published a crosswalk from its modality names to ASAM levels, and the 2006 Standards never use ASAM numbers. That leaves payers and referral sources guessing what “intermediate” or “reintegration” means clinically. If you want an outside body to verify the level you actually run, CARF’s ASAM Level of Care Certification “is available for adult Levels of Care 3.1, 3.5, and 3.7,” and ASAM says CARF has updated the rating elements for those three levels to match The ASAM Criteria, Fourth Edition. A certified program shows up in CARF’s Find a Provider search under the ASAM Level of Care filter, which matters here because the 2006 Standards give KDADS no ASAM level to print on a Kansas license.

Which Kansas modality lines up with which ASAM level is a judgment you make in your own program description. KDADS hasn’t made it for you, and that pairing is our reading, not a state position. Keep the certification away from your detox beds. CARF and ASAM both limit it to adult residential 3.1, 3.5 and 3.7, and neither describes it as covering withdrawal management, so Kansas social detox and acute detox units fall outside it.

What Counts as a Treatment Facility

K.S.A. 65-4012 itself lists no exemptions. They sit in the definition it borrows. “Treatment facility” means what K.S.A. 59-29b46 says it means, and the current version of that section (effective January 1, 2026) excludes “a licensed medical care facility, a licensed adult care home,” and any facility licensed under K.S.A. 39-2001 et seq., the act covering crisis intervention centers, CMHCs and psychiatric hospitals. Certified ADSAP programs are carved out too, as are physicians and independent-level BSRB licensees whose practice touches addiction now and then while they remain “not primarily engaged” in treating it.

For a residential operator the practical question is which statute your building sits under. A freestanding addiction residence is a treatment facility and needs the KDADS SUD license. A psychiatric hospital licensed under the 39-2001 act that also treats co-occurring addiction is, on our reading of 59-29b46, outside the SUD licensing statute, though it still answers to KDADS under the other act. Settle that before you choose an application packet.

Accredited Programs and the Certification Track

The statutory language below is from the official text of K.S.A. 65-4014 on the Revisor of Statutes site, and the certification rule is R03-806 of the 2006 Standards.

Kansas writes accreditation directly into its SUD licensing statute. Under K.S.A. 65-4014(b)(2), programs “that have been licensed by the secretary for aging and disability services and that have also been accredited by the commission on accreditation of rehabilitation services, the joint commission or the council on accreditation or another national accrediting body approved by” KDADS “shall be granted a license based on such accreditation.” Note the wording about rehabilitation “services.” That is how the statute names CARF. The provision sits in the renewal subsection and speaks of programs already licensed, so our reading is that it shapes renewals rather than replacing a first KDADS application.

The 2006 Standards supply the mechanism. R03-806 lets an agency “request certification status” when it is in good standing with a national behavioral health accreditor or is licensed as a mental health center. That is what the licensure-or-certification choice on the New Program Application refers to. The certified program’s file includes its current accreditation certificate plus the findings and corrective action plans from its most recent survey. It goes in no later than 90 days ahead of the license’s expiration date, and KDADS keeps making on-site licensure visits “to examine client records.” The statute also says KDADS keeps inspecting for state standards the accreditor doesn’t cover, and a program that loses accreditation “shall immediately notify” the department. For a residence that already holds CARF or Joint Commission accreditation, the certified renewal application is the shorter road at renewal time.

No Certificate of Need, but Two Safety Sign-Offs

Kansas repealed its health facility certificate of need program in 1997. House Bill 2182 became 1997 Session Laws chapter 16, approved March 24, 1997, and every section of the old KDHE need-review rules in K.A.R. 28-42 is now revoked or reserved. A new residence needs no state approval of need.

The premises checks are where residential timelines slip instead. The application packet wants the State Fire Marshal’s fire and safety sign-off, and R03-802 says the department “shall inspect the premises upon which residential services will be offered prior to issuing an initial license.” K.S.A. 65-4013 also asks for a certification from the secretary of health and environment wherever KDHE has adopted health standards for the facility, and 65-4018 sends plans for new facilities or alterations to KDHE for preliminary inspection when the rules call for it. Ask your local fire official early how long the State Fire Marshal’s scheduling runs in your county.

MOUD Under the R03 Medication Rule

We found no Kansas statute and nothing in the 2006 Standards that makes a residential program provide MOUD, and nothing that stops it from admitting someone already taking it. What the Standards do control is who handles the medication. R03-609(B)(2) says “Medication is administered only by a medical professional or nurse or self-administered by the client,” and the Standards define a medical professional as a physician, physician assistant or nurse. An inpatient program under R03-709 already carries licensed medical or nursing staff around the clock for medications, which makes it the easiest Kansas setting for continuing buprenorphine. The DEA’s January 12, 2023 letter confirms that “A DATA-Waiver registration is no longer required” and that buprenorphine prescriptions “only require a standard DEA registration number.”

Methadone maintenance is a different modality, opioid maintenance outpatient (R03-711), with its own physician medical director, federal SAMHSA and DEA requirements and an approved accrediting body. A residence doesn’t take that on. It names the licensed opioid treatment program its residents dose at and writes the coordination into policy, including how a resident gets there.

Ketamine in a Kansas Residential Program

KDADS hasn’t addressed ketamine anywhere we could find, and the 2006 Standards never mention it. What follows on licensing is our interpretation. The drug, nursing and monitoring points cite the statutes, rules and federal labeling linked in each paragraph.

The licensing question turns on whether ketamine is a “modality.” R03-808 requires an application, and gives KDADS 90 calendar days to decide, before a licensee adds a treatment modality or a site. The modalities the Standards define (R03-702 through R03-715) are service types like intermediate or acute detox, not medications, so our reading is that giving ketamine to a resident whose depression or PTSD came along with the addiction doesn’t create a new modality. We would still describe the protocol to the licensing manager in writing before the first dose, because R03-808 is the provision KDADS would reach for if it disagreed. Medication handling stays under R03-609(B)(2), so a physician, PA or nurse gives the dose.

We could not locate any Kansas State Board of Nursing statement that mentions ketamine. The board’s 2014 position statement on IV conscious sedation places it within an RN’s scope, on a physician’s order and backed by documented education and competence, “to administer pharmacologic agents via the intravenous route to produce moderate sedation/analgesia.” It names no drugs. Whether a sub-anesthetic psychiatric infusion falls inside that statement is a question to put to the board in writing. An inpatient (R03-709) or acute detox (R03-710) unit already staffed with nurses around the clock is the residential setting best placed to monitor someone after a dose.

DEA, State Registration and K-TRACS

DEA lists ketamine as a Schedule III depressant in 21 CFR 1308.13(c)(7), and 21 CFR 1301.12 says “A separate registration is required for each principal place of business or professional practice,” so a residence that keeps its own supply registers that street address with DEA. Kansas adds its own layer through the Board of Pharmacy, but K.S.A. 65-4116 treats a physician’s healing arts license as compliance with the state registration for that practice location. A residence ordering under some other registrant should ask the board which registration applies. For K-TRACS, the state’s prescription monitoring program, the reporting duty falls on dispensers, and K.S.A. 65-1682 as K-TRACS quotes it excludes a practitioner “who administers such a substance.” We read that as leaving in-house doses out of K-TRACS.

Spravato comes with setting rules of its own. Its FDA labeling makes it available “Only dispensed and administered in healthcare settings” certified in the Spravato REMS, and says “patients are monitored by a healthcare provider for at least 2 hours after administration.” The same label lists two depression indications and nothing for substance use, so neither esketamine nor ketamine counts toward your MOUD policy.

Which Residents to Consider

Timing matters more than diagnosis here. In our view nobody should be considered during acute or social detox, and the better candidate is a resident several weeks into an intermediate or inpatient stay whose low mood has not lifted on an adequate antidepressant dose. Someone who has used ketamine or PCP recreationally is a poor fit for an obvious reason. Your physician puts the screening rules in writing, and they go into the medication policy before the first referral comes in.

After Discharge

A series started in residence usually has to be finished somewhere else, and in Kansas that somewhere is a physician-owned practice. Early Detection Center, Inc. v. Wilson, a 1991 Kansas Supreme Court decision, bars a general corporation from providing medical services, and the corporation in that case had two shareholders who weren’t licensed to practice medicine. A clinic company owned by investors is therefore off the table. The split between the medical practice and a management company is laid out under the ketamine heading of Kansas Drug and Alcohol Outpatient Treatment Licensing.

The referral relationship between your residence and that clinic is what draws federal scrutiny. Because the residence holds a KDADS license, it fits the federal definition of a “clinical treatment facility” in 18 U.S.C. 220, which reaches residential treatment provided “pursuant to licensure or certification under State law.” Paying or taking anything of value for a referral there is punishable by as much as $200,000 and ten years “for each occurrence.” We found no Kansas patient brokering law that applies beyond that. Price every service the two businesses trade at fair market value, put it in a written agreement, and let a health care lawyer read it before anyone signs.

Staffing and Payroll for a Kansas Residence

Counselor licensing runs through the Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board (BSRB), which licenses three tiers under K.S.A. 65-6610. A licensed addiction counselor (LAC) needs at least a bachelor’s degree and a board-approved exam, and K.S.A. 65-6610 accepts more than one degree path: an addiction counseling program, another board-approved bachelor’s with the required substance use coursework, or a current Kansas license such as the LBSW with that coursework. A licensed master’s addiction counselor (LMAC) needs the master’s degree. A licensed clinical addiction counselor (LCAC) needs the master’s plus at least 3,000 hours of postgraduate supervised experience, 1,500 of them in direct client contact doing substance abuse assessment and treatment, and at least 100 hours of face-to-face clinical supervision. The board’s own LCAC reciprocity packet says the LAC “does not allow for the diagnosis of substance use disorders,” so plan on an LCAC or another independent-level clinician for diagnosis. Skip the counselor credential sections of the 2006 Standards (R03-301 to R03-303) when you write job descriptions. They describe an old SRS credential, and in our reading BSRB licensure is what KDADS reviewers expect to see on the staff list.

Kansas pays these counselors about what the rest of the country does. The May 2025 BLS wage survey (OEWS, Kansas) shows a $59,470 median for substance abuse, behavioral disorder, and mental health counselors, $120 above the national median of $59,350. The middle half of Kansas counselors earn between $44,370 (25th percentile) and $73,630 (75th). Put a clinical director and six counselors on payroll at the state median and salaries alone come to about $416,290 a year (7 x $59,470, our estimate). Awake overnight coverage under the ratios, nursing and benefits all come on top of that. The good news is that the LCAC hour requirement gives you a ready supply of counselors who want supervised work. An LMAC logging the 3,000 supervised hours toward LCAC, working under an LCAC clinical director at a salary below a fully licensed clinician’s, is a common setup, and seating enough of them in counseling roles usually brings clinical payroll down 40 to 60 percent from what an all-LCAC staff would cost. BSRB also issues a temporary license good for 24 months. For medications, a single RN can supervise a team of LPNs across most residential modalities, and R03-710 accepts an LPN as the nurse on duty in acute detox. The final roster comes from your modalities and bed count, and we map it against the ratio table before you hire.

How to Submit Your KDADS Residential Application

Use the New Program Application together with the New Program Application Packet, one application per program location. The fee is $100 per location, payable to “The Department for Aging & Disability Services/Survey Certification & Credentialing,” and K.S.A. 65-4013 caps it at $100. The packet checklist calls for a program-specific policy and procedure manual (it warns that “General policies and procedures or copies of the standards will not be accepted”), a review table keying your policies to the R03 standards, a roster of employees and their BSRB credentials, a chart of the organization with the agency board on it, liability and malpractice coverage, the fire and safety inspection, your admission packet, assessment tools and treatment and discharge forms. Check each residential modality you want on the form, plus the required Assessment and Referral Program.

R03-802 asks you to file at least 90 days before you plan to open, and KDADS acts within 90 calendar days of a completed application, with the residential premises inspected before the initial license issues. The SUD forms still print a 2017 contact (Stephanie Simpson at 612 S. Kansas Avenue). KDADS forms updated in 2024 and 2025 for other license types name Wendy Jacobs, Behavioral Health Services Licensing Manager, at Wendy.Jacobs@ks.gov or 785-596-3161, and the Survey, Certification and Credentialing Commission lists its office at 503 S Kansas Ave., Topeka, KS 66603-3404. We would email the licensing manager to confirm where the SUD packet goes before mailing it. For budgeting, we tell residential clients to expect roughly 4 to 8 months between filing and license (our estimate, not a KDADS figure).

Where Kansas Residential Files Stall

The packet includes a review table that lists the R03 standards one by one, and reviewers check your manual against it. Borrowed manuals fail that table fast, usually on the awake-staff rule or the missing assessment and referral service. Fire inspections are the next holdup, since KDADS can’t move the State Fire Marshal’s schedule. And some packets simply go to the wrong place, because the 2017 form still prints an old address and contact.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sizing a Kansas residence against the R03 staffing ratios? Send us your bed count and we’ll look at it.

Sources

• KDADS: Behavioral Health Licensing (checked October 16, 2026)
• KDADS: Survey, Certification, and Credentialing Commission (checked October 16, 2026)
• KDADS, R03-101 to R03-810: Standards for Licensure/Certification of Alcohol and/or Other Drug Abuse Treatment Programs, 2006 (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
• KDADS: New Program Application (checked October 16, 2026)
• KDADS: New Program Application Packet (checked October 16, 2026)
• KDADS: Private Psychiatric Hospital new application, licensing manager contact and renewal application, updated 2025 (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-4012: License required, penalty (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-4013: Application and fee (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-4014: License term and accreditation (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-4018 (Justia mirror): Inspections (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-4024a: Definitions (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 59-29b46: Definition of treatment facility (checked October 16, 2026)
• 1997 Session Laws chapter 16 (HB 2182): Repeal of the certificate of need program (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.A.R. 28-42 (Justia mirror): Certificate of need rules, revoked (checked October 16, 2026)
• BSRB: Addiction Counselors and LCAC reciprocity packet (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-6610 (Justia mirror): Addiction counselor license qualifications (checked October 16, 2026)
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, SOC 21-1018: Kansas and national estimates (checked October 16, 2026)
• CARF: ASAM Level of Care Certification (checked October 16, 2026)
• ASAM: Level of Care Certification (checked October 16, 2026)
• CARF: Find a Provider (checked October 16, 2026)
• DEA Diversion Control Division: Dear Registrant letter, January 12, 2023 (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
• Kansas State Board of Nursing: Administration of IV Conscious Sedation by the Registered Professional Nurse (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
• K.S.A. 65-4116: Controlled substance registration (checked October 16, 2026)
• K-TRACS: Reporting to K-TRACS (checked October 16, 2026)
• 21 CFR 1308.13(c)(7), via Cornell LII: Schedule III, ketamine (checked October 16, 2026)
• 21 CFR 1301.12, via Cornell LII: Separate registrations for separate locations (checked October 16, 2026)
• U.S. FDA: Spravato prescribing information, REMS and monitoring (PDF) (checked October 16, 2026)
• Early Detection Center, Inc. v. Wilson, 248 Kan. 869 (1991), OpenJurist mirror: Opinion (checked October 16, 2026)
• 18 U.S.C. 220, via Cornell LII: Illegal remunerations for referrals to recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, and laboratories (checked October 16, 2026)