No. HB 1165
Filed under Healthcare.
Certified Recovery Residences; Requires any person, entity, or organization that owns, operates, or manages a recovery residence to obtain and maintain certification through the Department of Children and Families; requires certification of recover residences & recovery residence administrators rather than authorizing certification as voluntary; requires recovery residences to apply for certification by specified date; authorizes recovery residences to operate conditionally during application process; requires credentialing entity to have certain expertise; provides requirements for active management of recovery residence; requires Legislative intent to require recovery residence administrator earn & maintain certification rather than authorizing such certification as voluntary; revises requirements for when licensed service provider may make certain referrals.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDAnyone who owns, operates, or manages a recovery residence must now get and keep certification from an approved credentialing entity. Operating without it becomes unlawful, though existing residences may keep running while their application is pending.
The law folds 'recovery residence' and 'certified recovery residence' into a single term. Every credentialing entity the state approves must now show real expertise in recovery housing and be affiliated with a national accrediting group.
Abstinence-only residences gain a new exception: they may turn away people currently on medication-assisted treatment if admitting them would upend the program's abstinence model, even though other residences still cannot exclude on that basis.
Referral rules tighten too: three of the four situations that used to be exempt from the anti-referral restriction are eliminated, leaving only referrals involving a residence with no financial stake in the outcome.
AIAnyone who owns, operates, or manages a recovery residence must obtain and keep certification. Existing residences must apply by January 1, 2027 and may keep operating while that application is pending, unless it is suspended or denied.
AIThe definition of 'recovery residence' itself now requires holding a valid certificate of compliance, collapsing the old two-tier system where certification was a separate, optional label layered on top of an otherwise unregulated recovery residence.
AIThe bill adds a direct rule, tied to the ADA and Fair Housing Act, that a recovery residence cannot refuse to admit someone solely because they are prescribed medication for a substance use disorder, though it may first run an individualized assessment.
AIThe law used to exempt four kinds of referral arrangements between treatment providers and recovery residences from its referral restriction. Three of those, including referrals where nobody benefits financially, are struck, leaving only referrals to a no-financial-relationship, democratically run residence.
AIThe Department of Children and Families must approve a credentialing entity that has demonstrated expertise in recovery housing operations and compliance monitoring and is affiliated with a specific national accrediting organization, not just any entity the department picks.
AIThe law now spells out what actively managing a recovery residence legally means: ensuring compliance, overseeing staff, developing recovery programming, handling crises with outside responders, and pursuing continuous improvement, giving credentialing entities concrete grounds to judge compliance.
AIA licensed service provider could previously refer patients only to a recovery residence that both held a certificate of compliance and was actively managed by a separately certified administrator. The administrator-certification half of that test is dropped.
AILevel I recovery residences used to be limited to people who had completed treatment and had at least nine months of sobriety. The completed-treatment requirement is removed, so nine months of sobriety alone now qualifies someone for Level I housing.