36-2021. Definitions

In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:

1. " Administration" means the Arizona health care cost containment system administration.

2. " Alcoholic" means a person who habitually lacks self-control with respect to the use of alcoholic beverages or who uses alcoholic beverages to the extent that the person's health is substantially impaired or endangered or social or economic functions are substantially disrupted.

3. " Approved private treatment facility" means a private agency meeting the standards established by the department and approved pursuant to sections 36-2023 and 36-2029.

4. " Approved public treatment facility" means a treatment agency operating under the directions and control of a county, providing treatment through a contract with a county, meeting the standards established by the department and approved pursuant to sections 36-2023 and 36-2029.

5. " Chronic alcoholic" means an alcoholic who is incapacitated by alcohol and who during the preceding twelve months has been admitted to a local alcoholism reception center on ten or more occasions or has been admitted for three or more episodes of inpatient or residential alcoholism treatment.

6. " Court" means the supreme court, the court of appeals, a superior court, a justice of the peace court, a municipal court or a city court authorized by charter.

7. " Department" means the department of health services.

8. " Director" means the director of the administration.

9. " Evaluation" means a multidisciplinary professional analysis of a person's medical, psychological, social, financial and legal conditions. Persons providing evaluation services shall be properly qualified professionals and may be full-time employees of an approved treatment facility providing evaluation services or may be part-time employees or may be employed on a contractual basis.

10. " Incapacitated by alcohol" means that a person as a result of the use of alcohol is unconscious or has judgment otherwise so impaired that the person is incapable of realizing and making a rational decision with respect to the person's need for evaluation and treatment, is unable to take care of basic personal needs or safety such as food, clothing, shelter or medical care or lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate rational decisions.

11. " Intoxicated person" means a person whose mental or physical functioning is substantially impaired as a result of the immediate effects of alcohol in the person's system.

12. " Local alcoholism reception center" or " center" means an initial reception agency for a person who is intoxicated or who is incapacitated by alcohol to receive initial evaluation and processing for assignment for further evaluation or into a treatment program.

13. " Treatment" means the broad range of emergency, outpatient, intermediate and inpatient services and care, including diagnostic evaluation, medical, psychiatric, psychological and social service care, vocational rehabilitation and career counseling, which may be extended to alcoholics and intoxicated persons.