Analyzing sober- living homes
Colorado lawmakers take a closer look in the wake of cases involving abuse
Colorado lawmakers are taking a closer look at unregulated soberliving homes after reports of problems in the growing industry, including an operator in the state who was convicted of sex crimes and faces accusations of insurance fraud.
Sober- living facilities came to lawmakers’ attention months ago as part of the special legislative committee focused on the state’s opioid crisis. Lawmakers involved in that committee didn’t make those homes a priority in a package of six bills introduced this session.
But now, following a report by The Denver Post on abuses at soberliving homes in Colorado that ran on Sunday, lawmakers plan to take what they call the first step to potential regulation of the facilities. The change would come in the form of an amendment to one of the opioid bills under consideration to ask the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention to begin drafting a definition for sober- living facilities.
Rep. Chris Kennedy, D- Lakewood, said it is “really important that we start to get a handle on it,” but at this point lawmakers “were just not sure if licensing the facilities this year was something we knew how to do just yet.”
“If we do this too hastily, the concern is you’d actually limit people’s access to treatment while you crack down on some of the bad actors out there,” he said. “So we need to figure out how to thread the needle on this.”
Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat who led the interim opioid committee, said her mother is living in one of the facilities and called it “critical in her recovery.”
“So not all of them are taking advantage of people, and they do play a very vital role in people moving toward recovery,” she said.
Sober- living homes have had a rapid rise in Colorado in recent years as addicts and their families seek out help, industry participants say. The homes offer therapeutic residential recovery, often coupled with outpatient treatment. Addicts living in the homes are expected to hold one another accountable for sobriety. Unscrupulous operators of the homes, though, have been tied to reports throughout the nation, and in Colorado, of patient brokering, human trafficking and identity theft as part of insurance fraud schemes.
Those problems have prompted providers to form a trade group that is lobbying legislators for increased oversight over the industry. The Colorado Association of
Recovery Residences eventually wants to require mandatory accreditation for sober- living homes in the state, said Ronie Fuller, the group’s president. Accredited homes would be inspected by the association to ensure they meet standards set by the National Association of Recovery Residences, she said.
“A lot of people are coming into the state from other states and opening recovery residences,” Fuller said. “We want to make sure that if someone operates a recovery residence that they are actually doing what they say they are doing for clients. We want to make sure they aren’t being unethical. There needs to be oversight.”
Fuller, who operates soberliving residences in Aurora and a day drug treatment rehab center, said she knows of at least 30 operators of sober- living homes in the Denver metro area and at least 100 statewide.
The Denver Post has reported on the case of Christopher Bathum, founder of Community Recovery, which ran six sober- living homes in Colorado. Bathum has been charged criminally in a $ 176 million insurance fraud scheme and was convicted last month of sexually assaulting patients. Bathum paid brokers to recruit patients to his soberliving facilities in Colorado, according to his former staffers and investors.
Requiring accreditation would be one way to crack down on such patient brokering, Fuller said.
“We view that as unethical,” she said.
The state trade association will offer accreditation to any sober- living facilities that seek it out as a way to show they are meeting ethical standards of care, Fuller said. Accreditation would require an initial inspection by the association, and then an unannounced inspection within the next six months, she said. Inspections then would occur annually.
If a mandatory accreditation process eventually is put in place, the trade group hopes to share inspection results with state officials, according to Fuller. The state association plans to start offering voluntary accreditation to sober- living home providers throughout the state in April, she said. The state association also plans to offer a grievance process for customers of the sober- living residences in the state, she added.
A recent survey by federal officials revealed the following states had a licensing regimen for sober- living homes more intensive than exists in Colorado: Ohio, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Utah and Wyoming.