Pennsylvania Drug and Alcohol Facility License: DDAP Steps
How Pennsylvania licenses drug and alcohol treatment facilities under Chapter 709: what DDAP licenses, application steps, provisional licenses and renewal.
As of October 2026. DDAP is rewriting its treatment facility regulations, with proposed rules targeted for Summer 2027, so re-check 28 Pa. Code Chapter 709 before you file.
A Pennsylvania drug and alcohol treatment license from DDAP is issued to a named owner for one location and a specific list of activities, and it expires one year after it is issued. That structure drives almost every planning decision for a group opening or expanding substance use programs in the state. A second site is a new application. A new level of service, such as adding short-term detoxification to a residential program, is a new activity on the license. And every license comes back up for an on-site inspection each year.
This guide is written for the executive director or compliance lead at a facility-level operator: residential, withdrawal management, partial hospitalization, outpatient and IOP programs, often across several sites. It covers who licenses what, the activity list, the application steps, full versus provisional licenses, the renewal cycle, ASAM alignment and the funding gate. For the wider Pennsylvania picture (Behavioral HealthChoices, county-assigned managed care and the mental health side), start at our Pennsylvania state hub.
How do I get a substance abuse treatment facility license in Pennsylvania?
The short version, in order:
- Confirm the services you plan are drug and alcohol treatment activities that DDAP licenses, not mental health programs that OMHSAS licenses.
- Fill out DDAP's Request for Licensing Application Packet form, checking every activity you plan to offer at the site.
- Email it to DDAP's licensure applications inbox. DDAP replies with the administrative forms, the application form and an application checklist.
- Complete the application and prepare for an on-site inspection.
- Answer any deficiency report with a plan of correction within 15 working days.
- Receive a full license, or a provisional license if you are close but not fully compliant, and display it at the facility.
The legal starting point is 28 Pa. Code 709.2(a), which says entities intending to provide drug and alcohol treatment services "shall first be licensed by the Department" (28 Pa. Code 709.2). Licensing comes before you serve a client, not after.
Who licenses what: DDAP for drug and alcohol, OMHSAS for mental health
Pennsylvania splits behavioral health facility licensing between two agencies, and multi-service groups often need both.
- DDAP licenses drug and alcohol treatment facilities and recovery houses. DDAP's licensing page says any freestanding public or private facility in Pennsylvania providing drug and alcohol treatment activities "must be licensed by DDAP" (DDAP Licensing).
- DHS, Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) licenses mental health programs under 55 Pa. Code, such as outpatient psychiatric clinics and mental health partial hospitalization. Despite the agency's name, OMHSAS does not issue the drug and alcohol facility license.
If you run a co-occurring program, you may hold a DDAP license for the substance use activities and an OMHSAS license for the mental health program at the same address. That has a practical upside. In a July 14, 2025 news release, DDAP and DHS said licensing staff from both agencies "will begin conducting coordinated annual inspections" of facilities that both agencies license for outpatient, partial hospitalization and residential services (DDAP news release, July 14, 2025). The release calls the process voluntary and says it could affect up to 170 jointly licensed facilities.
Which activities DDAP licenses (and why IOP is not on the list)
Pennsylvania licenses by activity, not by ASAM level. Chapter 709 is organized the same way: general standards, then separate subchapters for intake, evaluation and referral; inpatient nonhospital residential treatment and rehabilitation; short-term detoxification; transitional living facilities; partial hospitalization; outpatient activities; and inpatient hospital activities in freestanding psychiatric hospitals.
DDAP's own Request for Licensing Application Packet form (DDAP-EFM-5075, rev. 02-2025) lists the freestanding activities you can check:
- Intake, evaluation and referral
- Outpatient
- Partial hospitalization
- Inpatient nonhospital residential treatment and rehabilitation
- Inpatient nonhospital residential treatment and rehabilitation (halfway house only)
- Inpatient nonhospital short-term detoxification
- Inpatient nonhospital transitional living facility
- Narcotic treatment program
The form repeats the list for hospital-affiliated activities and adds hospital-based inpatient treatment, inpatient detoxification and narcotic treatment. Two notes on the form matter for planning. Intake, evaluation and referral needs local Single County Authority (SCA) approval, and the form says it "cannot be combined with an existing or potential activity" (DDAP Request for Licensing Application Packet form). Telehealth-only applicants use a separate section of the same form and cannot combine it with a brick-and-mortar request.
There is no separate IOP activity on the form. Intensive outpatient services sit inside the activities above, and how you deliver them is a matter of ASAM alignment (covered below), not a different license line. A group that offers residential, detox, PHP and outpatient at one campus checks four activities on one request. A second campus is a second site.
The application steps
DDAP's application page describes three steps. You fill out the Request for Licensing Application Packet form to apply for an initial license, add a new site to a licensed facility, or add an activity to a licensed facility. You email it to DDAP's licensure applications address. DDAP then contacts you with next steps, including administrative forms, the application form and an application checklist.
The page also explains what you get at the end: a certificate is "issued to the owner for a specific location and for specific drug and alcohol activities" (Apply for a License, DDAP). A facility may be licensed for more than one activity.
Three planning points for multi-site operators:
- Owner, location and activity are all on the license. A change to any one of them is a filing event with DDAP. Ownership changes and relocations have their own process, which we cover separately.
- The county is told. Under 28 Pa. Code 709.11(c), DDAP notifies the SCA for the area when a facility applies for and receives a license. Since SCAs also manage much of the county-level public funding, it pays to introduce yourself early.
- Build the inspection binder from day one. The annual inspection reviews policies and procedures, staff qualifications and training, clinical and medical records, and walks through each site.
Full license, provisional license and the 15-working-day clock
Under 28 Pa. Code 709.12, DDAP issues a full license after an on-site inspection finds the Chapter 709 requirements met. The license names the owner, the facility, the address, the date of issuance and the activities authorized, and Pennsylvania's rule says it is displayed "in a public and conspicuous place in the facility" (28 Pa. Code 709.12).
When the inspector finds problems, the clock starts. Under Pennsylvania's rule at 28 Pa. Code 709.16, the inspector leaves deficiency forms with the facility director, those forms go back to the Division of Licensing within 15 working days after the site visit, and a license "may not be issued until a plan of action has been approved" (28 Pa. Code 709.16).
If you are close but not there, a provisional license is the bridge. 28 Pa. Code 709.13 lets DDAP issue one "valid for a specific time period of no more than 6 months" (28 Pa. Code 709.13) when three conditions all hold:
- The facility has substantially, but not completely, met the licensing requirements.
- It is following a course of correction DDAP approved.
- Its remaining deficiencies will not adversely affect client health, welfare or safety.
Under the same section, facility staff submit a correction plan within 15 working days of receiving the deficiency report, and a provisional license can be renewed no more than three times. In practice, that caps the provisional runway at about two years. Treat a provisional license as a deadline, not a status.
The one-year term and the annual renewal inspection
Pennsylvania does not issue multi-year drug and alcohol facility licenses. 28 Pa. Code 709.11(b) says "The license shall expire 1 year from the date of issuance" (28 Pa. Code 709.11), and before it expires DDAP notifies the facility of the date for an annual on-site inspection for renewal.
DDAP sends those notices electronically and asks licensees to add its alerts address to their safe-senders list. For a group with five or ten licensed sites, that means five or ten renewal inspections a year, each on its own anniversary. A few habits help:
- Keep one calendar of license anniversaries by site and activity.
- Assign one owner for each site's inspection binder.
- Track open plan-of-correction items until DDAP closes them, not until you send the plan.
- Sample charts at each site before the visit, for example with a golden thread review that follows each record from assessment to plan to service and response.
- If a site also holds an OMHSAS license, ask whether the voluntary joint inspection fits.
ASAM alignment and DDAP's Level 2.5 and 3.7 review
Licensing and ASAM alignment are separate tracks that meet at inspection. DDAP says Pennsylvania adopted The ASAM Criteria, Third Edition (2013), in 2017, and all licensed treatment programs in Pennsylvania are "required to align with The ASAM Criteria, Third Edition (2013)" (DDAP ASAM Resources). As of October 2026, that is still the Third Edition. DDAP training materials discuss the Fourth Edition, but the state's alignment standard has not moved to it.
Two details matter at the facility level:
- Initial infrastructure review. DDAP conducts an initial review of policies, procedures and service delivery plans for providers offering Level 2.5 (partial hospitalization) and Level 3.7 (medically monitored intensive inpatient). It publishes lists of facilities that have completed that review.
- Self-assessments by level. DDAP posts service-characteristic documents and self-assessment checklists for Levels 1, 2.1, 2.5, 3.1, 3.5, 3.7 and 4, plus co-occurring versions. These are the closest thing to an inspector's lens on your program design.
This is where IOP shows up. Level 2.1 intensive outpatient has its own DDAP service-characteristic document and checklist even though IOP is not its own licensed activity. If you are new to the level structure, our guide to ASAM levels of care walks through each one.
Why the license also gates DDAP funding
28 Pa. Code 709.2(b) says no freestanding drug and alcohol treatment facility may receive funds from the Department (DDAP) without a license issued under Chapter 709. That gate is about DDAP funding, much of which flows through the county SCAs. It does not mean a DDAP license enrolls you in Medical Assistance or puts you in a Behavioral HealthChoices network. Those are separate steps with their own requirements, and the license is a precondition you clear first.
Rules under review: what to watch through 2027
The Chapter 709 sections in this guide are current as of October 2026, but they will not stay that way. In its regulatory agenda published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on July 25, 2026, DDAP says it is "conducting a full-scale review and update of its regulations" for treatment facilities and recovery houses, covering 28 Pa. Code Part V, Chapters 701 to 717, with proposed rulemaking targeted for Summer 2027 (Pa. Bulletin Vol. 56, No. 30). The agenda lists stakeholder workgroups on administrative burdens, ASAM alignment, physical locations, treatment, staffing and recovery houses.
If you are planning a new site for 2027 or 2028, build your policies to the current rule and watch for the proposed rulemaking. Comment periods are the one point where operators can shape the final text.
Keeping the activity-by-site picture straight in Ease
A Pennsylvania license is a grid: owner, site and activity, renewed each year. Ease organizes daily operations along two of those axes, site and level of care. Multi-site groups run every location on one instance, each location with its own NPI and billing provider, and admins configure which sites offer each level of care so clinicians see the relevant options. Ease keeps one chart across outpatient, IOP, PHP, residential and detox, and each organization configures the levels of care its facility offers. A patient's placement carries admission, continued-stay, transfer and discharge statuses, so a step-down from residential to outpatient is recorded in the same chart. Residential sites also get a per-location bed board with projected availability based on estimated discharge dates. See how it works for multi-location operators and in our post on bed management and census for residential programs.
None of this files anything with DDAP or stands in for an inspection. Licensing remains the operator's responsibility, and the current Chapter 709 text, DDAP's licensing alerts and your Division of Licensing contact are the sources to check before every filing.
Related reading:
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Pennsylvania agency licenses substance use treatment facilities?
The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) licenses freestanding drug and alcohol treatment facilities and recovery houses under 28 Pa. Code Part V. Mental health programs such as outpatient clinics and mental health partial hospitalization are licensed separately by the Department of Human Services, Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS).
How long is a Pennsylvania DDAP treatment facility license valid?
Under 28 Pa. Code 709.11(b), a license expires one year from the date it is issued. Before it expires, DDAP notifies the facility of the date for an annual on-site inspection, and renewal follows that inspection.
Is intensive outpatient a separate licensed activity in Pennsylvania?
No. DDAP's Request for Licensing Application Packet form (rev. 02-2025) lists intake, evaluation and referral; outpatient; partial hospitalization; residential treatment and rehabilitation; halfway house; short-term detoxification; transitional living facility; and narcotic treatment program, with hospital-affiliated and hospital-based versions. It does not list IOP as its own activity.
What is a provisional license from DDAP?
Under 28 Pa. Code 709.13, DDAP can issue a provisional license for no more than six months when a facility has substantially but not completely met the licensing requirements, is following an approved course of correction, and has deficiencies that do not threaten client health, welfare or safety. It can be renewed no more than three times.
Does a DDAP license make a facility eligible for Medicaid?
Not by itself. 28 Pa. Code 709.2(b) says a freestanding facility cannot receive funds from the Department (DDAP) without a license. Medical Assistance enrollment and Behavioral HealthChoices network participation are separate steps with their own requirements.
