Substance abuse recovery or treatment providers.

Existing law requires the State Department of Health Care Services to license and regulate alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facilities serving adults. Existing law authorizes the department to certify qualified alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment programs, as prescribed. Under existing law, the department regulates the quality of these programs, taking into consideration the significance of community-based programs to alcohol and other drug abuse recovery and the need to encourage opportunities for low-income and special needs populations to receive alcohol and other drug abuse recovery or treatment services. This bill would, beginning January 1, 2021, require an outpatient alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment program that provides those services to the public and is not otherwise licensed under existing law to be licensed by the department, except as specified. The bill would require the department to develop regulations to establish program licensure standards and would integrate existing quality assurance provisions into the licensure requirements. The bill would require the department to charge a fee that does not exceed the reasonable regulatory costs of administering the licensing program and issuing a license under these provisions. The bill would prohibit the practice or operation of an outpatient alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment program without obtaining a current valid license and would impose specified penalties for violations of that prohibition. Existing law requires the department to implement the Medi-Cal 2020 demonstration project, including the Drug Medi-Cal organized delivery system (DMC-ODS) that provides alcohol and drug use services to eligible persons and authorizes the department to enter into a Drug Medi-Cal Treatment Program contract with a county for the provision of those services within a county service area. This bill would deem a county DMC-ODS to be in compliance with the bill's licensure requirements and would exempt a Drug Medi-Cal Treatment Program contractor from those licensure requirements until January 1, 2023, or the date that the county becomes a DMC-ODS, whichever is earlier. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 11831.7 of the Health and Safety Code proposed by AB 919 to be operative only if this bill and AB 919 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.