(a) The department shall establish a comprehensive and coordinated program for the treatment of alcoholics, intoxicated persons, drug abusers, and inhalant abusers. The department may divide the state into appropriate regions to conduct the program and establish standards for the development of the program on the regional level. In establishing the regions, consideration shall be given to the city and borough lines and population concentrations and, when feasible, programs must be established with maximum local community involvement.
(b) The program of the department must include
(1) emergency treatment provided by a facility affiliated with or part of the medical service of a general hospital;
(2) inpatient treatment;
(3) intermediate treatment;
(4) outpatient and follow-up treatment;
(5) standards for alcohol safety action programs; the standards may vary in their requirements and stringency according to the population, price level, remoteness, access to transportation, and availability of ancillary services of the area to be served; a program must meet the applicable standards before it is approved by the department as an alcohol safety action program; the standards required under this paragraph shall be established in a manner that provides protection of the health, safety, and well-being of clients of the affected programs and protection for the affected programs from exposure to malpractice and liability actions;
(6) the priorities created under AS 47.37.045(e) and (f); and
(7) standards that are consistent with scientifically sound principles for measuring outcomes.
(c) The department shall ensure that adequate and appropriate treatment is provided to alcoholics and intoxicated persons admitted under AS 47.37.160 - 47.37.190 within the limits of available state and federal funds.
(d) The department shall maintain, supervise, and control all facilities operated by it subject to the regulations of the department.
(e) If possible, the department shall coordinate the activities of the program with all appropriate public and private resources.
(f) [Repealed, § 35 ch 126 SLA 1994.]
(g) The department may contract for the use of any facility as an approved public treatment facility if the department, subject to the regulations of the department, considers this an effective and economical course to follow. Contracting under this subsection is governed by AS 36.30 (State Procurement Code).
(h) The department shall
(1) inspect, on a regular basis, approved public and private alcohol safety action programs at reasonable times and in a reasonable manner;
(2) maintain a list of approved public and private alcohol safety action programs; and
(3) develop regulations for the operation and management of alcohol safety action programs that ensure
(A) screenings are conducted using a validated risk tool; and
(B) monitoring of participants is appropriate to the risk of reoffense of the participant as determined by the screening.
(i) An approved public and private alcohol safety action program shall file with the department on request data, statistics, schedules, and information that the department reasonably requires. An approved program that fails without good cause to furnish any data, statistics, schedules, or information as requested, or files fraudulent returns of them, shall be removed from the list of approved programs.
(j) The department, after holding a hearing conducted by the office of administrative hearings (AS 44.64.010) under the provisions of AS 44.62 (Administrative Procedure Act), may suspend, revoke, limit, restrict, or refuse to grant an approval for an alcohol safety action program for failure to meet standards established under (b) of this section.
(k) The public and private alcohol safety action programs established under AS 47.37.040(21) shall provide
(1) screening of eligible persons to determine the risk of the person to reoffend and the criminal risk factors that are contributing to the risk; and
(2) monitoring of participants based on the risk to reoffend as determined by the screening.