Drug Rehab Industry Fraud & Corruption on So Many Levels – Here Comes Adult Supervision
The drug rehab industry fraud seems to be everywhere. It has been around for a while but really gained speed during the Obama Administration with the Affordable Care Act. Why is it so prevalent? There are a number of reasons but the biggest reason is money. The fraud has taken place not only with public insurance like Medicaid but also the private insurers as well.
The private insurers who can reimburse as much as $30,000 for a 30 day stay in an out of network facility is big bucks. Drug rehabs competing for $30,000 pay days will do a lot of things to make these checks flow freely into their facilities.
Here come the Feds! Attorney General Jeff Sessions is out for the Drug Rehab Industry
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is poised to announce a major law enforcement action this week targeting health-care fraud, focusing on opioid treatment programs exploiting Obamacare insurance plans, according to two people familiar with the matter.”
We’ve seen Gov. Christie talking about the opiate and opioid problem a lot recently and now the Attorney General Jeff Sessions is getting in on the act in multiple ways and talking about it at a D.A.R.E. Conference in Dallas Texas. Hopefully all of the things that the new administration does results in less demand for drugs and fewer lives lost.
There is no doubt that Florida is in the crosshairs of the Feds. Florida is frequently called the drug rehab capital of the USA. With this recognition also come some responsibility. In a recent expose by Megyn Kelly of NBC News they discuss the plight of families who have lost loved ones to complete dereliction of the system. To make matters worse there are plenty of rehabs hijacking other rehabs phone numbers on their Google My Business Pages and sending the patients down to Florida. The bad news is Google is not able to keep up with this scourge.
Another problem is patient brokering and it is happening all over the country not just Florida. In this Boston Globe article is another story of more families suffering with the predators preying on families in extremely vulnerable positions. Somehow it just isn’t right but it continues…..but maybe State Attorney for Palm Beach County Florida Dave Aronberg and Attorney General Jeff Sessions will clean up the mess.
By Office of Senator Dave Aronberg, via Wikimedia Commons
It will be interesting to see where the chips fall in the next couple of days.
On a positive note there are some people making a difference and there is hope especially for those addicted to opiates and opioids. In this Indy Star article a Federal Judge is “prescribing” a new medical device that stops the pain from opiate and opioid withdrawal and related symptoms. It is called The Bridge Device and it is slowly gaining a lot of steam in many addiction treatment circles.
