The treatment hustle behind the scenes

So, the other night I posted about cash-only buprenorphine practices. The next morning I find this in my mail. Consulting services to help establish turn-key buprenorphine clinics with cash revenue models that use toxicology services to generate revenue and provide aggressive risk management. (It’s worth noting that I also get emails about treatment valuation conferences/services … Continue reading The treatment hustle behind the scenes

The treatment hustle makes Last Week Tonight

This weekend, John Oliver spent nearly 2o minutes describing several of the treatment industry’s biggest hustles. Is this a sign of the times? Maybe, but it’s not new. In Recovery Rising, Bill White describes the business landscape in the 1980s: The trend of private insurance companies paying for the treatment of alcoholism and subsequently other … Continue reading The treatment hustle makes Last Week Tonight

Another hustle. Google steps in. (Thank you, Google.)

It’s the kind of thing that 99.9% of people would never know, but addiction treatment related keywords have long been the most expensive keywords in Google AdWords. By far. There are treatment programs with, say, 80 beds that have 100 websites. Some identify the provider, most do not. A few years back I published a … Continue reading Another hustle. Google steps in. (Thank you, Google.)

Another day, another recovery hustle

HuffPo has a new article on ethically impaired treatment providers: The opioid epidemic, which just added Prince to its list of victims, has shoved the addiction industry into the spotlight, and many here at the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers conference worried aloud how the industry’s lax ethical standards would look in the new … Continue reading Another day, another recovery hustle

Another hustle. “This is predatory.”

Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly (ADAW) posted an article that describes the system used by a Florida treatment program to fill beds with insured clients as an out-of-network provider. They want out-of-network admissions because they do not come with managed care restrictions. ADAW describes their approach as “not unusual for the field.” The fact that … Continue reading Another hustle. “This is predatory.”

The Few, The Proud, The Under Resourced – Our SUD Workforce

Working in the substance use service system has always been a challenge. This was true even from its early days. We help people in some of their most difficult moments with few resources to support what they need to get well. We operate under constant triage conditions. Yet despite this, we tend to oversell those … Continue reading The Few, The Proud, The Under Resourced – Our SUD Workforce