How Some Southern California Drug Rehab Centers Exploit Addiction

Southern California is a region with numerous drug rehab centers. From Malibu to San Bernandino, you are likely to find a place that offers addicts a chance to kick the habit. While many such centers are well-intentioned, a growing number have resorted to unscrupulous practices, mainly motivated by profit. For instance, the Los Angeles area has many unlicensed sober living homes—residential homes that act as rehab centers. Here, an addict can easily become a Los Angeles drug rehab target as these establishments try to woo potential clients, sometimes aggressively. 

Exploiting Drug Addiction

The drug rehab industry is a multi-billion dollar one. This means that there are significant profits to be realized. Setting up a drug rehab facility is relatively easy, with few barriers to entry. These factors have made drug rehabs a tempting opportunity for many people looking to make a quick buck. With most drug treatments covered by insurance schemes, getting into this line of work seems like a gold mine.

Many individuals are certainly riding this wave, using every trick in the book to lure addicts into their facilities. Getting the addicts into their facilities is just the first step in a series of underhanded practices. 

The following are the different ways in which rehab centers exploit drug addiction:

1)Failure to Deliver Proper Services

A drug rehab center is supposed to be a place that helps addicts get clean and stay that way. Unfortunately, many of them are not performing this basic function. There are numerous official reports each year of rehab centers that kick out addicts for one reason or another, with many such addicts still very much in the drug habit. Whether it’s down to lack of care by the management of such facilities, poor quality of service, or some other factors is unclear. However, it’s clear that many addicts that go through rehab centers rarely beat the habit. Of course, these centers still get paid for their services (or lack thereof). 

In California, there isn’t much oversight of the drug rehab industry. There are no strict qualifications for who can set one up. Anyone can go into business as long as they have the cash. This has created a conducive environment for crooks to set up shop. Regardless of whether such individuals know how to run a rehab center or not, they go into business and charge clients tens of thousands of dollars. This means that many addicts are not getting the kind of services they pay for. 

2) Exploiting Loopholes in the System

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, is regulatory legislation that significantly overhauled the healthcare system. Together with other similar schemes, it made medical access easier for numerous people. As a healthcare bill, it covers drug treatment programs. For example, the ACA makes it easy for people in Southern California to sign up for insurance, even those that have recently arrived from out of the state. Since the ACA requires insurance providers to foot the bill for things like drug recovery, many unscrupulous rehab center proprietors see this as a quick way of gaming the system. They encourage people to sign up for insurance. Afterward, they try to house as many addicts as possible to collect as much of the insurance money as they can. This is done with disregard for the level of care that these addicts receive. The goal is to get as many addicts through their rehab centers as possible. Some rehabs are very proactive at this, going as far as using third parties to bring people into their facilities from all over the country. 

3) Enticing Potential and Former Addicts

Many disreputable drug rehab centers are not shy about using money and other incentives to get people through their doors. This is in addition to the very idea of trying to entice people to get into rehab even when they may not need such services. To this end, such unscrupulous drug rehab centers can offer cash giveaways, free air tickets from any part of the country, or discounts to get as many clients as possible. To them, having more addicts in their facility translates into more profits. 

These are ways in which some drug rehab centers use addiction as a profiteering tool. There are numerous reports of such facilities overbilling insurance companies to make extra money. It is not uncommon for addicts to receive many more services with increased regularity than was promised. This is all in an attempt to run up the treatment bills. 

Ultimately, the promise of easy money is the main motivator for exploiting drug addiction.