Report hits drug-treatment industry

“Rock bottom.” It’s a euphemism glossing over all the messy details for addicts facing the worst periods of their lives.

They often use this moment of vulnerability to phone for help, and the person who picks up on the other end may help determine their path for recovery.

But too often, addicts are duped by deceptive marketing as well as admissions personnel more interested in selling treatment than providing help, according to a grand jury report that looked into abuses in the drug-treatment industry.

The grand jury, convened by Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, was the first of its kind in Florida to examine the state’s billion-dollar substance abuse treatment industry and offer recommendations on how to improve it.

The report, released this month, cites deceptive marketing as a common practice that threatens to exploit a vulnerable class and harm the reputation of good treatment providers, Aronberg

said in a recent interview.

“We’re seeing this all over the place where people look to marketers for help in finding a treatment facility and instead they get steered to someplace where the marketer has a financial incentive, a place that looks nothing like the picture or description,” he said.

When someone is sick, they go to a doctor. If the doctor can’t help, they recommend a specialist.

But that’s not how it works in the industry of substance-abuse treatment, said Justin Kunzelman, director of business development for Ebb Tide Treatment Center in Palm Beach Gardens and a member of a county task force working on solutions to regulate the industry.

The recovery industry has shifted from marketing to patients through wordof-mouth recommendations to a pay-for-patient style of marketing that’s unfair for reputable businesses and vulnerable consumers, Kunzelman said.

Addicts looking for help most often talk to their friends or search online for treatment options. Friends aren’t going to offer the best clinical advice, he said, and online searches may not lead people to a reputable treatment provider.

“Either case, in the environment we have now, most of the time it leads to lessthan-stellar results,” Kunzelman said.

Some businesses misrepresent their location and services to reel people in, according to the grand jury report.

They use misleading banner ads claiming treatment providers are located in a certain city, such as Jacksonville, then reroute calls to national call centers or several different treatment providers across the country, according to the report.

Other exhibits in the report show marketers piggybacking on the names of notable treatment centers using Google keywords then rerouting callers to other referral agencies.

It’s common for drugtreatment providers to pay marketers to route calls to their admissions lines, according to the report.

A single national advertisement may route to several different providers, said Howard Needle, CEO of Alternative Solutions Media, a marketing firm for treatment centers based in Miami Beach. Needle said his industry helps treatment centers connect with clients. What they do with the calls is up to them, he said.

“My job is just to supply them with the number of calls they ordered, and they pay me on a per-call basis,” he said.

The report found that compiling a list of potential clients, or “lead generation,” can create a conflict of interest because admissions employees may feel pressured to convince callers to go to their treatment center, regardless of what’s in their best interest.

Or, a caller might be urged into a more intensive and expensive level of care than necessary, according to the report.

Kunzelman said that the generation of leads isn’t necessarily unethical. It’s up to the admissions personnel who answer the phones to provide the best possible care for the patients, even if it means turning them away, he said.

If the admissions personnel misrepresent what they can offer and are trying to get that person to come to their treatment center at all costs, that is unethical, he said.

Sometimes, the people answering the phones are untrained and in recovery themselves, Kunzelman said.

“What happens when you hire a kid with a year sober and no clinical experience is they just want to do their job really well and get bonuses. They don’t do it maliciously,” he said.

Kunzelman said he should know, because he has been in recovery for nearly eight years and answering phone admissions calls at Ebb Tide Treatment Center for the last four years.

When Kunzelman answers the phone, he tries to learn more about the person’s addiction, then asks his clinical director, a state-certified medical doctor, for an assessment, he said.

Do they need detox? Do they have a mental illness? Have they had any periods of sobriety? These are a few of the questions he asks to see if his center is a good fit, he said. If it’s not, he’ll recommend another provider that might better serve that person, he said.

Kunzelman wants to see legislation requiring training and certification for admissions personnel to establish better standards and build trust in callers, he said.

The grand jury report recommends the state certify marketers, force them to provide disclaimers and criminalize deceptive marketing practices and providers.

“Advertising for substance-abuse-treatment providers should be held to a higher standard, like advertising in other health care fields, and should provide consumers with important information in the form of upfront disclaimers,” the report found.

Al Johnson, chief assistant state attorney and leader of the Palm Beach County Sober Homes Task Force, said the state needs to apply a legislative “tourniquet” to prevent abuses and help good treatment providers.

Treatment providers “are devoid of minimal qualifications and standards,” Johnson said. “We license hair cutters; why is it that we don’t license admissions personnel?”

Earlier this year, state Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, and Rep. Bill Hager, R-Boca Raton, sponsored legislation similar to what the report recommends. It sought to limit deceptive marketing practices and offer protections for addicts searching for treatment, but the bill didn’t pass.

Hager is now drafting language for another measure with guidance from the grand jury report, said Beth Lerner, a spokeswoman for Hager.