Answer Addiction

Tag: rehab reform

  • Congress Passes Bill To Penalize, Convict Patient Brokers

    Congress Passes Bill To Penalize, Convict Patient Brokers

    The new bill would impose prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines as high as $200,000.

    A bipartisan bill—passed as part of the SUPPORT Patients and Communities Act on Oct. 24—will impose criminal penalties on individuals or organizations that accept or give payments or other incentives to prospective rehabilitation patients in exchange for referrals to treatment facilities.

    An op-ed piece in USA Today noted that these “patient brokers” connect those seeking treatment with centers or sober homes without proper or reputable means of providing assistance to patients; the result is loss of funds, increased insurance rate and in many cases, greater chances of overdose or death.

    The new bill would impose prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines as high as $200,000.

    S.3254—the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018—will allow federal prosecutors to pursue and penalize patient brokers, phone-call aggregators and the companies that allegedly pay them for referrals.

    As USA Today noted, it has been illegal for Medicaid or Medicare facilities to accept kickbacks since 1972, but it remains fair game for treatment centers and sober homes that take private insurance, including policies sold through the Affordable Care Act.

    The USA Today op-ed claimed that patient brokers can be a persistent presence wherever individuals suffering from dependency issues might be found, from drug courts to street corners. The facilities that they promote also maintain a media presence through television and internet advertising, and call aggregators can purport to connect prospective patients to treatment, but actually collect their information to sell to the highest bidding facility.

    A bipartisan group from the Energy and Commerce Committee questioned eight such call aggregators about their business practices in May 2018.

    Avoiding such blatantly predatory entities can be a challenge for the more than 2 million Americans suffering from opioid dependency. While some can consult family medical practitioners or guidelines from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and other organizations, state laws vary on the regulation of treatment centers, so that what may be illegal in some areas can pass in others.

    As USA Today noted, penalizing those that prey on individuals in crisis is an important step in providing proper assistance to those with dependency issues.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • New Rehab Reform Laws Aim To Clean Up California's Troubled System

    New Rehab Reform Laws Aim To Clean Up California's Troubled System

    One of the new laws puts a ban on patient brokering. 

    California Gov. Jerry Brown last week green-lit a series of measures aimed at reforming the state’s troubled and under-regulated rehab system.

    One of the new measures, which come on the heels of media scrutiny of the state’s recovery industry, would require rehabs to refer to evidence-based models or the American Society of Addiction Medicine treatment criteria for a minimum standard of care. 

    “It’s an unbelievably unregulated field, and we’re going to try to put our arms around that by requiring some standards and the best scientific evidence before these facilities are licensed,” state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) told the Orange County Register. “We may be able to solve a small part of the problem, and save some lives.”

    The legislation gives the California State Department of Health Care Services five years to figure out the details.

    “This bill would require the department to adopt specified standards for these facilities as minimum requirements for licensure,” the law reads. “The bill would authorize the department to implement, interpret, or make specific this requirement by means of plan or provider bulletins or similar instructions until regulations are adopted and would require the department to adopt the regulations by January 1, 2023.”

    The governor also green-lit other rehab-related legislation, including one bill that puts a ban on patient brokering and another that makes rehab licenses provisional for a year  and revocable.

    Although the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, some cities and the Orange County Board of Supervisors voiced support for the new measures, an emergency room physicians’ associations worried whether giving in to NIMBY demands for regulation would work to increase stigma around addiction, according to Cal Matters.

    And, despite what advocates view as legislative successes, some proposals didn’t pass or didn’t make it into the final legislation, including language that would have raised sober living home standards and created criminal consequences for patient brokering.

    “Now we have legislative intent and precedent to address this issue in a larger context,” activist Ryan Hampton told the Orange County paper. “We’re going to continue to build on this success in the next session and in the future. We will get to the point where we have full protections in place. At least we’re not going backwards.”

    Though the various pieces of legislation had different legislative sponsors, at least one credited the newspaper group—and comedian John Oliver—with lighting the spark that ignited change.

    “Thanks to you and the paper and John Oliver for opening my eyes to the issue and the abuses,” state Sen. Hill told the publication. “Southern California has such a prevalence of these facilities. It’s not benefiting anyone, and harming so many people.”

    View the original article at thefix.com