the stigma is no longer around ADDICTION AS A DISEASE, · On a nationwide scale, for every $1.00 invested in drug court, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice

the stigma is no longer around

ADDICTION AS A DISEASE,

ADDICTION TREAMENTrather, around

When stigma and addiction are mentioned in the same sentence, conversations always center around the stigma people have concerning addiction itself and the pre-conceived ideas that they may have about individuals who abuse drugs and alcohol. However, there’s another stigma that drug rehab facilities aren’t particularly anxious to discuss… the stigma around addiction treatment itself.

The stigma around addiction treatment certainly has its roots in the stigma associated with addiction itself. People often don’t want others to know they’re addicted or that they have a family member struggling with addiction. Accompanying that thought, in most cases families and individuals also don’t want anyone to know that they had to seek treatment for it. The shame of addiction is a very real part of the disease and keeps too many people from seeking treatment sooner. This shame has, in recent times, been transferred to the treatment of the disease of addiction as well.

Addiction treatment stigma, separate from the stigma surrounding addiction itself, is shaped by a number of factors. It would be appropriate for drug rehab centers to consider the following in order to communicate more effectively with potential patients and help create the best possible public perception of addiction treatment services.

| THE STIGMA IS NO LONGER AROUND ADDICTION AS A DISEASE, RATHER, AROUND ADDICTION TREATMENT

CAUSES OF ADDICTION TREATMENT STIGMAMany factors from social norms, to state and federal laws, to controversial admissions and marketing practices, to treatment centers’ business core values contribute to the stigma around addiction treatment, including the following:

The High Number of Arrests for Drug Possession in the United States

The United States continues to incarcerate more people than any country in the world. The Bureau of Prisons has indicated that more than 200,000 people are incarcerated in federal prisons. Roughly half—48.6%—are in for drug offenses. In 2010, it was established that 53% of all drug arrests were for marijuana. Drug kingpins are rarely included in that percentage. Most people serving prison time are doing so for possessing just a small amount of marijuana.

The trend for drug-related arrests has been mostly up for the last 35 years. In 2015, for example, the total number of drug arrests totalled a whopping 1,488,707. These are sad figures. What’s more, prison certainly won’t stop addiction. Even if their access to drugs is limited in prison, the minute addicts return to the street, their disease of addiction will all-too-often kick back in and they will return to using, usually very quickly.

The desire to punish users doesn’t work. Fortunately, drug courts are changing a lot of perceptions about how to deal with the drug epidemic. At present, all 50 states have drug courts, of which there are more than 3,000.

As each day passes, stronger relationships are forged between courts and addiction treatment facilities. States are beginning to see an advantage to this arrangement. Statistics indicate that people who go through a drug court program and enter drug rehab are much less likely to be arrested again for drug possession. Nationwide, studies indicate that 75% of Drug Court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program. The success of the drug court program also saves money for taxpayers due to less crime and fewer court and prison costs. On a nationwide scale, for every $1.00 invested in drug court, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice costs alone.

All of this information serves to shine a very favorable light on the work that drug rehab centers are doing. Everyone in the drug rehab industry can only hope that drug courts will play an even greater role in the future so that the high arrest rates for drugs can finally begin a downward progression as progress is made fighting this complex behavioral health disease.

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Source: www.drugwarfacts..org/cms/Crime


Patient Brokering

Author Robert Louis Stevenson once wrote a famous story called “The Body Snatcher,” which is a lurid tale about stealing bodies and selling them to doctors so that they can use them for autopsies at a medical school. Sadly, there’s an odd counterpart to this practice today, only it involves trafficking live people for profit. It’s called patient brokering.

Most people have never heard the phrase “patient brokering,” let alone know what it means. This illegal practice occurs when “body brokers” make money by recruiting addicts for unethical and unscrupulous treatment facilities.

In places like South Florida and Arizona where there is an abundance of drug rehab centers and sober homes, flocks of young adults are in treatment at any given time. Many of them will relapse, and some will find themselves homeless with nothing but the suitcase they arrived with. Most have come from all parts of the country and are easy to spot by body brokers when:

• They show up in groups to buy supplies at convenience stores• They hang out in front of 12-step meetings and chain smoke• They gather in groups in coffee shops• They are waiting for money to be delivered from parents near the Western Union at Walmart stores

If these people have health insurance coverage, body brokers will offer them free housing and transportation. They may be offered a gift card for a grocery store... perhaps a cell phone or membership to a gym. Sometimes, the bribes are even bigger... maybe an Xbox, cash or even drugs.

Once an addict is referred to an unscrupulous treatment center, payments are offered to the body broker as a ‘marketer.’ These payoffs may amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars.

These patient brokers will often stoop to any level to get a bounty for new patients. It has been frequently observed that they have no hesitation in posing as patients at detox facilities for the sole purpose of looking for new prospects.

The truly horrible aspect of patient brokering is that once addicts realize how body brokering works, they sometimes turn into body brokers themselves or take on flat fee ‘marketing’ contracts with an assumed patient count each month. These are frequently newly sober patients who are looking to make easy money. They are typically so well connected to others in the addiction community that they make perfect brokers.

Such practices had been known to exist for awhile but little has been done to successfully stop them. However, that happens to be changing, especially in South Florida. In 2016, the high-profile arrest of Whole Life Recovery center’s CEO in Boynton Beach, Florida, as well as the 2017 arrest of the owner of Chapters Recovery in Delray Beach, Florida, signalled a clear crackdown on such illegal and unethical behavior. Federal enforcement, and new state legislation in many states including Florida have begun and ethical treatment providers in Florida and across the country are organizing to set stronger standards through professional support organizations.


Rampant Urinalysis Testing and Lab Abuse

Some sober homes around the country have found a way to make money by recruiting people for the intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) that take place at drug rehab centers. These centers collectively charge millions of dollars in fees to insurance companies for drug urinalysis performed on patients in IOPs.

There is a great incentive for unethical sober homes and unscrupulous treatment centers to keep these urine tests going at the highest volume possible. To make that happen, some sober homes have been known to employ body brokers to bring addicts into intensive outpatient programs. To paraphrase a saying popular during the California Gold Rush, “There’s gold in them there drug tests.” The objective of such shady operators is clear: bilk the insurance companies out of money by keeping patients in treatment as long—and often—as possible and testing more than may be medically necessary.

What created the atmosphere that would allow this type of activity to flourish? Some blame certain stipulations in the Affordable Care Act while others credit the crackdown on painkiller abuse and the heroin industry that benefitted as a result. Some blame insurance companies for not paying close attention and reacting slowly to the problem. In fact, all of these factors have contributed.

Unbranded Drug Rehab Websites

No one questions the pressure drug rehab centers are under to fill beds in a highly competitive field. That has pushed some facilities to create unbranded websites to attract additional web traffic. These websites often try to appear like an independent source verifying that one rehab center may be better than another. When it becomes public that an unbranded website is directly connected to a particular drug rehab center, the perception of a business operating deviously is impossible to avoid from consumers and other treatment centers.

There are now a number of web pages that tell readers how to spot tell-tale signs that a “neutral” drug rehab information website is actually owned by a drug rehab center. These web pages tell readers that such sites either don’t have an “about us” page or the information on it is very easy to verify as false. Although getting more traffic is tempting, remember that unbranded websites suggest deception in many cases, which is a quality that drug rehab centers clearly don’t want to be associated with. Above all else, rehab centers must be able to gain the trust of potential patients. Never forget that patients take a giant leap of faith in picking a drug rehab center for treatment, especially if they haven’t been in a treatment program before. Without that sense of trust from an accredited medical provider, this decision becomes difficult, if not impossible.


Lack of Outcomes Data

Frequently, drug rehab centers will mention their great success rates. For example, a facility somewhere may claim a 90% success rate. That 90% statistic may actually be true but there should be an enormous asterisk next to it. Why? Because the number may not mean what readers think it means. Unbeknownst to the average person looking for a drug rehab center, the measure of substance use disorder treatment effectiveness may be as follows:

• Reduction in the frequency of substance use during drug rehab treatment• Reduction in the amount of the substance being used during drug rehab treatment• Successful sobriety for a relative period of time (i.e. self-reported sobriety among patients

between 3 and 6 months after treatment)

Only seldom are results tracked during the 12 months following treatment, which is obviously the time when relapse is most likely to happen. Many unethical centers won’t want to talk about post-treatment of former patients. If they did, facilities like the one in the above example might see their 90% ‘success rate’ plummet to single digits.

Unfortunately, there is no way to be 100% certain that a treatment center’s claims are genuine. The lack of an accepted standard across the addiction treatment industry regarding what constitutes a successful outcome gives unscrupulous treatment centers ample opportunity to disseminate deceptive language to unsuspecting potential patients and their loved ones. Some even advertise medically assisted treatment as a cure, or in the same light as abstinence. The damage they cause adversely affects all of the treatment centers that are trying to do the right thing and play by the rules.

Many in the addiction treatment space are demanding a standard in order to preserve the integrity of addiction treatment centers that are truly dedicated to the health and welfare of their patients. The Institute For Behavior and Health, for example, has proposed a standard that requires measuring outcomes for a full five years. This extended length of time is necessary, the Institute says, to fully gauge the effectiveness of long-time abstinence and if quality of life has improved. It would also drive strengthened aftercare programs among treatment providers as a primary focus in preventative medicine.


Drug Rehab Centers: Some Claim to Be Experts at Everything

With the ever-increasing competition in the drug rehab industry, centers are fighting to fill beds more than ever in spite of the epidemic levels of addiction in the United States. In an effort to be all things to all people, some centers have tried to represent themselves as having the expertise to deal with all types of addiction and co-occurring behavioral health disorders. As any addiction professional knows, treatment can vary greatly depending on the substance, or substances, involved and the underlying causality of the abuse which may include trauma, PTSD, mood disorders, and toxic relationships.

While most rehabs are well-versed in the most commonly abused substances, such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and meth there are many other substances that patients may present with that aren’t seen as frequently. These less-frequently-encountered substances may include acid, peyote, spice, bath salts, inhalants, ketamine and syrup.

If a treatment center employs a cookie-cutter approach to its treatment philosophy, many patients presenting to drug rehab centers with less-common addictions may be short-changed. Using a template for all types of addiction completely ignores the unique needs of each patient, which could greatly diminish the effectiveness of treatment. If a center overlooks pertinent aspects of a patient’s personal history, for example, it may be unable to deliver a successful outcome. Staffing ratios of doctors and licensed therapists may need to be bolstered to provide adequate care to truly provide expert levels of knowledge on the wide variety of behavioral health issues related to these addictions.

Some centers will market themselves as all things to all people. Some may tout a “full continuum of care” when that may not truly be the case. In the end, it’s advisable to be careful about the image you decide to project about your drug rehab center. Centers that advocate for their patients and educate consumers actually tend to have the highest admissions rates and strongest alumni involvement long term. Perhaps this long term focus should be a consideration for more operators to drive a stronger medical standard.


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CONCLUSIONThose who work in the drug rehab industry are acutely aware of the stigma around the disease of addiction. However, the stigma around addiction treatment itself must also be recognized and addressed in marketing, admissions, operations, and clinical care. A shift to long term operational considerations over short term revenue must become a norm in order to fight this stigma and consumer doubts. Much like other medical care industries, if a standard is not adopted for clinical care and outcomes monitoring, regulation will follow stigma. The public is aware that there is not a universal cure for addiction, but they do want to see improved circumstances and long term support for their loved ones as with the treatment of any medical condition. Without question, the greatest strength that drug rehab centers can have is to be perceived by the public as having integrity and possessing the ability to achieve positive results. Anything that interferes with these two perceptions must be eliminated to fight the stigma of addiction treatment.

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the stigma is no longer around ADDICTION AS A DISEASE, · On a nationwide scale, for every $1.00 invested in drug court, taxpayers save as much as $3.36 in avoided criminal justice

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