April 16, 2021 • 54 mins
Millions of people in the US struggle with substance abuse issues every single year -- experts work around the clock to help folks with substance abuse issues and other addictions to break free of these dangerous, sometime fatal cycles. And this means rehabilitation, or rehab, is a big business. Like many other large industries, rehab also has a dark side -- a series of disturbing conspiracies that continue, largely unabated, in the modern day.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. This episode is a heavy one. Please
know that from the offset, we feel it is important.
(00:48):
We also need to establish at the very beginning two things. First,
nothing in this episode should be mistaken for any sort
of medical advice. Uh. There are medical professionals who are willing,
more than willing to provide assistance. Will tell you how
to contact them at the end of the episode. Secondly,
(01:09):
this is not a hit piece on thousands and thousands
of experts working, often tirelessly, often underpaid to help people
escape harrowing cycles of addiction, and today's episode involves addiction.
These are sometimes explicit stories, but they're important stories, and
(01:31):
they're often not acknowledged in the mass media in a
way that is not exploitative. According to the National Survey
on Drug Use and Health, over nineteen point seven million
Americans aged twelve or older battled some sort of substance
use disorder in twenty seventeen, and you can find the
(01:52):
estimates range widely. There's also another claim that fifty three
million Americans aged twelve plus where U s a drug
abusers in that seems like a high rise. So the
numbers vary here depending on which source you go to.
But I think we can all acknowledge that substance abuse
(02:14):
is a huge problem, one that has become exacerbated in
these our days of pandemic. I mean, would you guys
agree it's just kind of part and parcel with the
way our country treats like mental health or it's just
not taken very seriously. And you know, I mean, the
pandemic was not only a biological health crisis, I guess,
(02:36):
but it's also become in snowballed into a mental health crisis.
And what is addiction if not a signpost of some
struggle with mental health. And I mean we've seen the stats.
It's absolutely ballooned in terms of like people falling back
into old habits who maybe had sought treatment in the
past or maybe off of the uh, off of that substance,
(03:00):
whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever. And then because
of being cooped up and the you know, insecurity of
what the future holds and employment and all of that stuff,
people kind of fell back into those old patterns. It
makes absolute sense. But I don't think it's being addressed,
you know, in the ways that some other countries addressed
things like that are taken seriously. Um, I don't know that.
(03:20):
Maybe I'm sorry if I sound soap boxy about it,
but I don't really feel strongly about it, and it's
something that I've seen throughout my life and it's something
that I think has been stigmatized in a really nasty way,
and I think it's time for a change. I don't
think it's soap boxy. I think we're all on the
same page today. Now, what what What are your gr thoughts.
I agree that it is a It is a major
(03:41):
macro problem for the United States, substance abuse and use.
It is an even more harrowing micro problem, you know,
on the personal level, on the individual and I just
want to make the point that you know, we we
we made we were being very open with everyone here.
(04:03):
We are not targeting anyone who's attempting to help people
who are using drugs or abusing drugs. Were also not
targeting the individual person if you're listening out there who
has struggled with, you know, abusing a substance in one
way or another. I just want to make that really clear. Yeah,
it's never helpful to do so. Really, if you think
(04:24):
about it, yelling at people, bullying them, mocking them never
changes them for the better. That is, that is a
truth of the human species. And to the point about
mental health disorders, UH, there is a co occurrence right
wrapped up in substance abuse disorders. The numbers I just
(04:47):
gave at the top have fluctuated over time in response
to larger nationwide events such as an economic depression, a pandemic, or,
as we proved pretty conclusively vous episode, a widespread conspiracy
to hook people on opioids. Factors like this can all
influence rates of addiction, and luckily, there are experts, doctors,
(05:10):
therapists working literally around the clock to help people free
themselves from these dangerous, sometimes fatal cycles of abuse. In fact,
there is an entire industry UH surrounding this concept, and
today's episode is about just that the rehab industry. Here
(05:31):
are the facts. That's right. This industry that we're talking
about today is a forty two billion dollar industry. And
as we said, as the problems have ballooned UM in
recent decades, so has the industry. UM. Because let's remember
that US insurance is privatized and uh, the healthcare system
(05:54):
is privatized and all for profit UM. So insurance be
and accepting rehab claims UM. But it's it's still not
the same as it's like having all of it covered
kind of, you know. I mean, you get a little
supplements and maybe there are certain providers that are quote
unquote in network, and as we're going to discuss today,
(06:15):
some of those aren't necessarily ones with the best intentions
for the patient. Maybe at least when you dig a
little deeper, UM. Increased coverage from Medicaid and the a
c A, the Affordable Care Act, in tandem with what
you talked about, then that opioid epidemic has you know,
what could be seen as a positive thing on the
(06:36):
surfaces fueled growing access to treatment UM as well as
that need for treatment. Right, Yeah, that's right insurance companies
under the A C. A and another Act that we'll
talk about today. Uh, they were mandated to provide treatment.
But of course, the system this large will always be
(06:56):
no matter how well intentioned, it will always be imperfect.
By the rehabilitation industry is projected to reach of fifty
three billion dollars in the US alone, with states providing
most of the funding, which means regardless how of how
you feel about rehabilitation as a concept or about treatment
(07:19):
centers in specific, if you live in the US, you
are paying for this. Oddly enough, this was may surprise
some of us in the crowd. Today, this industry is
not yet heavily monopolized. There's so it's weird because so
many other large industries are the funeral industry, the automotive industry.
(07:41):
You know, there there's a massive slice of the pie
that goes to a few big players. Usually there are
some big rehab chains out there, like nine or so,
but the industry is mostly made up of much smaller operations,
and as it grew over time, it became more specialized.
(08:02):
Right those what you know. I'm sure when you think
of things like Betty Ford, you might think of drug
addiction or substance abuse, but they're also treatment centers that
specialize in things like sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling problems.
There was one that I was interested to find, conspiracy
theory addiction. Have you guys heard about those centers or
(08:24):
those treatment programs? Oh, my gosh, no, but I can
see it. I mean we've seen it with things like
Q and On and people that kind of you know,
get a strange from their families because they're obsessed with
this kind of stuff. Yeah, it definitely feels like a
mental health facility more than any kind of even a
rehab to me. Yeah, and these things can be you know,
wrapped up right. It's it can be difficult to extricate
(08:48):
the two. But yeah, in the post qu and On world,
this has happened. We've had a lot of We've got
a lot of our fellow conspiracy realists who may have
lost contact with friends or family members because of these
kinds of beliefs or even flat earth theory, which you know,
people dunk on all the time, rightly so, but for
people really believe it, it can lead to estrangement, nicotine addiction,
(09:12):
anxiety disorders, eating disorders. The list goes on. I think
it's a very important point that you may have been
about this industry not being monopolized, because what that is
going to do rather than having these glithes in the
industry that kind of controlling how much money you can
make essentially in a facility, because they make a certain
(09:34):
amount of money, they charge certain prices. You know, it's
a standard that basically gets set when there's a monopoly
or you know, a couple of big companies. In this case,
everybody is essentially vying for market share and share and
getting you know, a similar amount of market share within
the industry. So everybody is pushing as hard as they
(09:55):
can to get as many patients or clients, customers, whatever
you want to refer to. You know, somebody who would
be going to one of these facilities, they are they're
trying as hard as they can to get as many
people as they can. Similar issue with private prisons, right uh,
(10:16):
this this is a huge, increasingly well known market and
it's often private. As you said, Matt treatment can be
very expensive, like the Betty Ford clinic right where you'll
you'll see celebrities in the news going to betty Ford
because of maybe a relapse or struggle with some sort
(10:38):
of addiction, or if we're being cynical, sometimes to engage
in some pr after a something has smirched their reputation.
But look, folks, at the offset, there is an absolute,
definite need for these programs, and there is no escaping
the simple fact that rehabilitation has literally really saved people's lives.
(11:02):
There are people right now that you may know there.
There may be people listening today who are alive now
because they received care and treatment. But there's more to
the story, and it's an important aspect of the story.
Like let's say you have a loved one or family
member in need of help. You might be overwhelmed by
(11:26):
the sheer flood of conflicting, contradictory advice you get from
all corners about what to do next. In a way,
it's like the experience of expecting a child. Right, you
have people come out of the woodwork swearing by some
very weird stuff in a very authoritative way. But where
(11:46):
does that authority come from. That's where we see a
lot of claims and criticisms originate. There was a wonderful
piece a while back on last week Tonight wh you
all know we're big fans of that, see, and it
showed out numerous rehabilitation facilities struggle with not just credibility,
(12:07):
but with accountability. Yeah, there's a professor emeritus at the
University of New Mexico named William R. Miller who is
mentioned in that In that piece, he contacted several rehab
centers and he was attempting to learn more about their
success rates, because a lot of these facilities claim that
they've got just a large number of percentage of people
(12:30):
that go through their facility and then get out clean
and they can they live on their lives without ever
having to deal with abuse. Again. Well, he found that
multiple centers for various types of addiction or disorders as
we listed earlier, they claimed this high success rate and
the lowest claims the lowest claims of success rates were
(12:53):
around eight, meaning those those these places considered eighty percent
of their patients essentially cured, right, and and that's for
the long term, that's not like cured for a couple
of months, that is, you don't got to deal with
it anymore. But when professor Miller asked for data to
back up these various claims, he found that absolutely zero
(13:17):
of the places he had contact and reach out to
had data to actually back up these claims, or at
least data they were willing to share. I guess the
safest phrase would be kind of what you said, long
term recovery, right, instead of necessarily cured to be fair,
to be painfully fair. That does not automatically make these
(13:37):
claims untrue. But it's pretty troubling to note, isn't it
that at the very least, there wasn't much effort to
track or document anything, and they're dealing with people's lives.
That's where some of the criticism begins, but it is
far far from where the criticism ends. So we're gonna
pause for word from our sponsor and we'll die eve
(14:00):
into the dark often unreported conspiracies surrounding rehab. Here's where
it gets crazy. Standards, right, who needs them? Come on standards?
Let's just wing it. I've thought standards were important, guys.
(14:22):
I thought that's to how you measure things with a standard. No, No,
let's let's make it up as the mood strikes us, right, Like,
maybe let's go pet horses that. Yeah, you know that
that equine therapy does help sometimes. Yeah, if you if
you like horses. I guess that's true. You do need
to at least not be afraid of a horse. But
(14:44):
but I'm just putting it out there. And we've talked
about this before. My wife, who's a school psychologist, has
seen equine therapy work wonders for younger children. Oh yeah,
and there's a there's a great movement here in Atlanta
that my family has participated in in helping kids from
the inner city get out and learn how to work
(15:06):
with horses and how to work on farms. I'm thinking
of that John Oliver piece because there's a great segment
in this interview where there's this person who went through
a treatment center that had equine therapy, and in very
crass terms, he talks about how it did absolutely nothing
and he hates horses. It's it's a classic if you
(15:30):
watch it, but it's it's a serious thing. There was
no there was no law about whether or not you
could or could not use equine therapy. There was also
no standard for what constituted success. There was no data
and no studies that proved the efficacy of this. That
(15:50):
doesn't mean it's bad, that doesn't mean it doesn't work,
but that means there wasn't much due diligence put into
figuring out what it actually did for patients. And might
seem strange, right that rehab facilities can make so much
money year over year without backing up their own claims
of success. But that's unfortunately not surprising when you consider
(16:14):
this profoundly troubling fact as we record right now, there
are absolutely no federal standards across the board for counseling
practices or rehab programs, zero zip, zilch data. Yeah, it's
even more extreme than that. Some states don't even require
high school degree or any kind of you know, mental
(16:38):
health training or um, you know, pub social work kind
of background to become an addiction counselor in California, for example,
as long as you're operating privately and dealing directly with
patients who pay directly to you. UM, just about anybody
can start an outpatient center. And it's not it doesn't
(16:58):
necessarily point as some kind of you know, insane level
of corruption at the state level. UM. It's just a
thing that we see oftentimes when an industry or demand
for an industry outpaces the infrastructure that's in place or
the regulations that are in place for for that industry. UM.
So a lot of the regulators that that are you know,
(17:20):
installed to uh oversee these kinds of operations just weren't
ready for this huge growth. It's this ballooning of this
you know, rehab industry UM and just became backlogged and overwhelmed. Uh.
Not to mention insurance companies being in the similar boat,
but like you said, Ben, despite good intentions, UM, these
(17:41):
private for profit entities often make their money by denying
fraudulent claims. And it's complicated further by the fact that
you know, insurance companies, being private for profit organizations, make
money or the very least, you know, don't have to
pay out money by investigating and denying fraudulent claims. So
(18:03):
they do have incentives to crack down on and deny
treatment that they see as unsound or abusive. And yet
that backlog still is a problem because these investigations are
horror conducted by people and if they are absolutely underwater
and there, you know, workload is overwhelming, some things are
(18:24):
going to fall through the cracks or it's going to
take a very long time to actually track down. And
in the meantime, you know, everything kind of moved forward, right,
that's true, and experts recognize this problem. There's a guy
named Dr Mark Willenbring, who was the former director of
Treatment Research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,
(18:45):
who explicitly said, there's nothing professional or evidence based about
counseling programs, and without these sorts of standards, and without
these standards being enforced, things can get uncomfortably and dangerously
wild west pretty quickly. Like if you are entering a
(19:08):
treatment facility now in the current day, there's nothing really
stopping the administrators they're from subjecting you to treatment that
has been proven to do more harm than good. We
found one study that might be familiar to people about
something called confrontational strategies. This one was new to me,
(19:33):
but it apparently it originates in the sixties and seventies.
I think this is the concept that a counselor essentially
would give very frank feedback to someone, let's say, suffering
from a substance addiction. Uh, but it could also be
just yelling expletives at them and judging their character, telling
(19:55):
them they're so wrong, telling them it's almost like I'm
imagining it's like one of those intervention TV shows, but
instead of giving people loving feedback like we want we
love you. This is why it hurts us that you're
dealing with this, This is how it hurts me. It's
more of just like you're you're terrible, and why are
(20:15):
you doing this? Yeah, like the the I used to
think of those as popcorn interventions, like you would see
a show like Dr Phil or something. We're going to
scare this bad kid straight. Uh. The issue with those,
you know, like we said at the top, is attacking
people often will not change their mind or incentivize them
(20:38):
towards the behavior you wish them to exhibit. It's it's
tough and this lack of oversight, you know, you see
it in other types of US treatment industries, like the
troubled team industry. In fact, one of our colleagues and
friends of the show, producer Josh Thain, is me out
(21:00):
with a podcast about a specific example of just how
harmful the troubled teen industry can become. It's a podcast
called Camp Hell and Awaki, which is coming out at
the end of this month. Highly recommended. Do check it out,
and it's really good, but it's brutal. It is maybe
(21:21):
not suitable for all listeners, but yeah, be be aware
of that. So this problem with standardization can have these
deadly consequences. When people who are treated as experts, even
with good intentions, base their ideas of treatment entirely on
(21:42):
their own personal perspective or on their own clinical experience
instead of data, instead of information compiled by experts, they
run the serious risk of putting patients in danger. I mean,
take uh, you know you mentioned intervention. There's so many
like celebrity rehab shows, right, and you know, they purport
(22:04):
to be about normalizing addiction and stuff. At the end
of the day, they're just kind of like a celebrity
Big Brother show kind of situation that's ultimately looked at
as entertainment, which I find kind of further alienates folks
going through this. But maybe that and maybe I'm wrong,
but the whole celebrity rehab house thing, it always seems
(22:25):
to be about like how much drama can we cause
it's the same attitude as like any other reality show.
It's all about creating, manufacturing these moments um for people's entertainment. Yeah,
you know, and that's I mean, that's harmful for the
people on the show, but it also you know, as
you said, old that can be harmful to the people
(22:46):
watching as well, not to mention exploitative take something like
celebrity rehab like you mentioned with Dr Drew, this program
used an approach that, accorded experts maya savits, wasn't backed
up by by data like they it wasn't proven to
(23:08):
be effective. And the unfortunate dark note there is that
more than thirteen percent of the patients involved in that
died after treatment, primarily due to overdoses. And it's tough
to know how bad that actually is only because you know,
(23:30):
we we heard the statistics from the other treatment facilities
that say around eight of people are quote unquote cured
when they leave a facility. Um and then you imagine
that of the patients from this show ended up dying
due to an overdose. I guess it's just it feels
like this is terrible, but it feels like it's on
(23:53):
par with statistics of of people who just who don't
get a lot out of a treatment facilit This problem
also means that treatment centers aren't required to offer alternative
treatments even when those methods or techniques are proven to
(24:14):
have efficacy, you know, like for instance, the administration of
a substance like methodont they're not. They're not. There's not
a law that says you're required to offer this because
research shows it works or something like that. But the
problems don't stop there, like we go If we go
back in and we dig through the data, we find
(24:36):
even more distressing things. So, okay, we I can't remember
where we've talked about this before, but whenever you read
a study, one of the first things you want to
check is whether it is self reported, like a poll
that is self reported. Berns taught us that it's all
(24:58):
at how a question is frame, right, and it's all
in how a person feels at the time, right, Are
they talking about their past self, their future self, or
their current self, because those are often three different people
who may have three different answers to a question depending
on how it's praised. This kind of applies to rehab facilities.
Those eight percent success rates that Matt mentioned earlier are
(25:22):
often entirely self reported, sometimes based on something as simple
as the clinic calling former patients to check in, which
means it's two layers of self reporting at that time,
and that can literally be all it is ring ring
how you doing So, what is the stop a patient
from just not telling the truth. It's a phone call.
(25:44):
That's a really tough thing. And I bet there are
a lot of people out there who have dealt with
a loved one who has done that very thing, where
you know they've gone through something, they've been through a facility,
you've you know, called to check in on them or
even gone to see them to check in on them,
and everything appears to be fine. They self report that
everything is fine, and then you learn later that it
(26:08):
was very much not. So that's a tough thing because
what what else? This is my only this is my question.
What else would you do? Would you have like mandatory
post drug screenings for patients in some way, or even
voluntary drug screenings? And I wonder how many how many
patients would accept that as just a new thing that
(26:28):
they do moving forward after treatment? Right? Like would there
should there be some kind of law baked in that
says after you go to a treatment facility, you need
to check in X amount of times for why abounts
of months or years? Uh, there's not. There's not a
lot out there like that. There's especially there's not like
(26:50):
a federal level thing about it so right now. The
fact of the matter is that a treatment facility in
the US, depending on to Knowle's point, which state it's in,
can pretty much claim to be whatever it wants to be,
and it can say whatever it wants to say about
the effectiveness of its treatment and its approach, and it
(27:12):
will often not be required to offer solid evidence that
these strategies even work, you know what I mean, not
just like not that they help patients, but that they
don't harm them. The burden of proof simply doesn't exist.
And then that's not to say, of course, the treatment
facilities are all somehow scams. Again, rehab has literally saved
(27:36):
people's lives, but there's no getting around it. Folks in
this business do have the opportunity to make a lot
of money without doing what they're saying they're going to do.
And this stuff matters and has absolute consequences, you know,
for people's in people's lives. American addiction Centers estimated eight
pcent of recovering addicts will relapse in a single year
(28:00):
after leaving our rehab facility. It's a pretty shocking statistic. Um.
But as we're going to discuss after the break, there's
a reason for this, and we're back. We talked a
little bit about corruption and conspiracy, and I think we've
(28:24):
we've done our best to make clear that this is
not saying the industry entirely is made up of bad actors,
but there are provable known cases of corruption, deep corruption,
and you know, to be completely candid, we like many
of our fellow listeners today, have had personal experience with
(28:49):
some of these systems, if not directly, then through our
relationships with our families or our loved ones. And the
conspiracies and the corruption, it's real. It's not a theory. Uh,
these things are happening likely as you hear today's episode. Yes,
(29:12):
And one of the places, one of the physical places
that we're going to focus on as we're talking about
this concept is South Florida and a couple of places
in Florida like Delray Beach and a lot of the
beaches that are just along the coast near there. And
as we're talking about these things, I am personally going
(29:34):
to be discussing experiences of a few close people in
my life who have been through many of these experiences.
So we're just gonna throw that in when it's contextual,
just to give you a heads up. But to begin,
we're gonna start with some reporting coming out of Vice.
That's right. Adam Jazinski, speaking to Vice, a veteran of
(29:57):
Florida's sober home industry, says that the business oftentimes is
uh corrupt to the core. He alleges that sober homes
weren't really so much safe spaces for patients and recovery
as they were what he describes, in his words, quote,
holding barns for kids to wait until they relapsed. Um.
(30:21):
And he claimed that many of these bad actors who
were operating these facilities were actually making these shady kind
of backroom deals with treatment centers and and again, in
his words, quote, unscrupulous people would ease that process along.
They'd come through with a bag of dope, get your
dirty urine, and sell you for two thousand bucks. Yeah,
(30:45):
so let's unpack that. Really. Does that literally mean they
would tempt you with drugs and then you know, with
the intention of making you get a dirty screen. Yeah,
that's one way it could work. There's a kickback process
that we can examine here. When they say sell you
for two thousand dollars, it means they're sending you from
(31:07):
that sober home as a relapse patient to a treatment
facility or back to a treatment facility because there's a
rentse and repeat cycle that can occur here. Florida has
absolutely been a hotbed for rehabilitation corruption in the past.
There is a harrowing seventeen NBC News investigation that found
(31:29):
many vulnerable patients in Florida specifically have become quote grist
in an insurance fraud mill. And we can walk through
how it works. Unfortunately, the steps are well established and
these operations have been pretty successful. Yeah, and and before
we get into it, let's to find a couple of
(31:51):
things really quickly. So a treatment center or a rehab
facility is where a person would go to get treatment.
We've talked about that, where a person would go to
get all kinds of thing, anything from counseling to UH strategies.
They will learn strategies on how to cope with their addiction,
how to not UH indulge in the behaviors, or at
(32:12):
least strategies theoretically to do those things. A sober home,
at least in Florida is where a person would leave
a treatment facility and go live with others who are
doing the same thing, attempting to, as the name states,
live in a sober manner. And as we're going to learn,
oftentimes those places are not necessarily the it's not the
(32:35):
best environment for one to live cleanly. And we'll talk
about it. But I've got some personal experience here from
people who have been through this, this thing which is
often referred to as the Florida Shuffle. So let's get
into it. Yeah, this is where they caught like, so
what you know, As as Null said earlier, the concept
(32:57):
here gets pretty close to the idea of selling people.
And that's how some of these folks have thought of
that in the past. They've even been called body brokers.
That's the conventional term. So let's say you are, unfortunately
a corrupt treatment center. You saw the opportunity two commit
(33:21):
a kind of indirect insurance fraud, maybe with willing participants, right,
And what you do is you partner with these body
brokers and these operators of these widely unregulated sober homes,
and you start targeting people. You're looking for a specific
type of vulnerable person, someone struggling with addiction and someone
(33:46):
who also has good health insurance because again, these health
insurance companies will often pay out various sometimes exorbitant cost
that may be inflated by one person or another. So
these brokers and these sober home owners, they become predatory.
(34:09):
They start finding people who are trying to get clean
and they say, hey, I'll give you can stay here
for free or for a very low price. We'll give
you a gift card to go to the grocery store,
so you don't have to worry about food. You want
some cigarettes, do you want you know, uh, beauty treatments
like manicures, etcetera. Totally All you have to do in
(34:31):
return is go to this specific treatment center. This is
the one that we recommend and require. And then every
time that one of those people goes to that corrupt
treatment center, there's a kickback paid to the owner of
the sober home. You can start to see the cycle.
And this is something that was observed by a very
(34:55):
close person to me where they noticed that there were
p well in the working in the sober homes who
were being paid by the owners of that sober home
to go out and recruit, as you said, vulnerable people
with very good insurance to do this exact thing. This
is an eyewitness that I'm not going to talk about
(35:17):
who this person is, but just know that I was
on the phone with them five minutes before we started
recording this episode discussing this very thing, and they told
me that they saw this firsthand. And look, we're no
stranger to being overcharged in you know, certain health care facilities,
whether it be hospitals, and the sliding scale that goes
(35:39):
along with like how much does an asperacause it depends.
It's like airline tickets, you know, no one knows at all.
There's so many factors can go into it, and you
can always argue your way out of it, but it's like,
why can't it just be standardized? And that's the same
deal here. Not only UM are patients kind of treated
like commodities. Uh, These treatment centers build their insurance companies
(36:02):
tens of thousands of dollars for just that kind of stuff,
whether it be questionable counseling without any kind of real background,
like we're talking about earlier or expensive and at times
absolutely unnecessary drug screens. And then of course things like uh,
laboratory tests or what are often referred to as quote
(36:23):
exotic laboratory tests. I'm not quite sure what that would
entail UM. But right, like, I mean, you know they
you were at the mercy of the proprietors of these facilities,
who you know, would argue that these are all necessary
steps to ensure that someone is on the road to recovery, etcetera. UM.
But it's sort of like you know a lot of
(36:43):
those uh kind of mafia you know, construction deals you
always hear about where it's like they make their money
by overcharging for you know, a chair or like whatever
it might be, and it's hidden on this paperwork. And
because of the backlog we're talking about, or any kind
of bureaucratic backlog, sometimes these things go unnoticed for a
very very very long time. UM. And and the people
(37:04):
that are you know, responsible for these types of kind
of crooked practices don't get caught, if ever, or at
the very least, they keep doing it and doing damage
to people and the system for a long long time.
And State Attorney Dave Ehrenberg notes UM in an excellent
point that really mirrors what we've been talking about earlier.
(37:25):
These relapses, those of patients that relapse after leaving one
of these facilities. What is that if not great for business?
He says, quote, this is an entire industry that's been
corrupted by easy money. Unscrupulous actors have taken advantage of
well intended federal law and a lack of any good
law at the state level to profit off people at
(37:46):
the lowest stages of their lives. Maybe at the top
of the show, sounded the dismissive like, I just I'm
very suspicious of of of insurance in general. I feel
like things like co pays and having to navigate all
of the red tape just to get it a little
bit of help just to get treatment, and you end
up kind of paying, you know, these premiums, and then
every time I go to the doctor, I end up
(38:08):
getting a bill like for for however much it is.
It doesn't seem you know, it's certainly less than it
would be if I didn't have insurance at all, but
it's still sometimes a couple of hundred bucks. And I
looked down at the thing, and it's like, why wasn't
this covered? I don't understand. How do I even look
into why? Um So, these laws, while well intentioned, we're
still working within a very flawed insurance system that's only
(38:29):
just started to accept the idea of covering mental health
treatments like this, um, and it's it's it's it's broken,
and then the ability for it to keep up with
this new backlog of cases is just impeded by the
fact that it's already kind of broken. Um. So the
(38:49):
federal law that Aharnberg is referring to is not regulation. Um.
He's talking about the Affordable Care Act and the Mental
Health Parity Act of two thousand eight, And can you
help us unpack those those kind of the relationship between
those things. Yeah. Yeah, So earlier I had said there's
no federal level regulation the a c A and the
(39:13):
Mental Health Parity Act that that you just mentioned. They
some aspects of it might be considered controversial, but in
this context, here's what they did. They required private insurance
companies to cover things like substance abuse treatment, and they
(39:33):
prevented these companies from rejecting people who have pre existing
conditions related to that. And they had also allowed younger
people to stay on their parents insurance until they were
twenty six years old. So this meant that insurance companies
had to enter the game, right, and that's part of
what fueled the growth of this industry. And I would
(39:56):
agree with you. These laws are well intentioned, but without
regulation and oversight, they present this huge opportunity for corruption
and outright conspiracy. And it's an opportunity that it seems
numerous people and institutions have taken advantage of in recent years.
And again, look a taxpayers, yes, are footing the financial
(40:20):
bill here, but the patients are all too often paying
with their lives. And that's something you can't put a
price on no matter. You know what what these scammers
think about two thousand dollars per body. Yeah. In the
in NBC investigation, they specifically talked about a twenty four
year old woman who went to one of these facilities
(40:42):
and then ended up in one of these houses and
she owed eed there while at at the Silver Living House,
and she passed away and prior to her dying, which
was obviously tragic to the family, prior to her dying,
she reached out to her mom and said that one
(41:03):
of these guys who was working at the facility, I
think it was called Reflections. It's always a name something
like that, you know what I mean. Like the same
way there's a genre of names for uh for suburbs,
you know, like Shady Oaks or Park Lake. Uh. Reabsenters
have names like oh, I'm just I'm making some up here.
(41:26):
I hope they're not true, but uh something like Breeze
Hills or Milestones, right, sure. Yeah. Well, one of the
people there at the facility where she had been to
allegedly was supplying the women at that at that home
with drugs, specifically with opioids. And it was that same
(41:51):
cycle that we just outlined, and the people that I
know said that there was a similar thing occurring. Um
And we can get into even more detail about some
of these things, but it should be I would just
like to put out here that even in the best
case scenario, let's say one of these sober homes is
attempting to do the right thing and help people get through. Oftentimes,
(42:14):
there are five bedrooms in a home that used to
have only three bedrooms, but they turned it into five
bedroom home, and each one of these bedrooms is being
occupied by two, maybe three people, and each of those
people is paying the home let's say a hundred to
two hundred dollars. In the case of the people I know,
it is two hundred dollars per person per week, which
(42:36):
means that the individual or group that owns that home
is making tons of money on rent. Think about how
much rent money that is. That's so that's like five bedrooms,
three people in each bedroom, Let's say two hundred dollars,
so six hundred times five three thousand dollars a month, right,
(42:57):
really really nice money coming in. Then you add on
top of that any kind of kickbacks that come from
the cycles that can occur. You're talking about a big
incentive for someone to get into that game. Question, how
different is that? I know it's different in terms of
what these are in patient facilities, and it's it's more
(43:19):
about perpetuating the addiction than just robbing people of their money.
But I've always thought that the d u I schools
that are like mandated when people get you know, a
d u I UM are somewhat similarly crooked, and that
there's not much regulation there either, and you're basically forced
to take these classes and pay out all this money
(43:42):
that is to a private for profit company just happens
to have a cop contract with a state or government,
you know. Entity do you see any parallels between these
two or am I am I misreading this? It doesn't
feel like the same thing to me. Just I don't know.
I don't know what essentially a d u I school is.
I've I have only I'm only aware of defensive driving schools,
(44:04):
which is a similar mandated thing. I don't think that
one could be corrupted in the same way. Yeah, it's interesting.
I I imagine there could be a situation where someone
is staying so a sober home. You're you're supposed to
be staying there while you're taking out patient treatment. That's
why it's not regulated the same way, and it has
(44:26):
a lot to do with Florida's Fair Housing Act. But
I could see a situation maybe when someone is in
UM an alcohol rehabilitation program and it's out patients, but
they're required to go with this specific center because it's
in partnership with their sober home. I could see them
also being required to go to a specific school maybe
(44:47):
and and maybe that's where they kickback occurs. I'm sorry,
and maybe I wasn't clear all all I'm saying. I
know that that these d u I schools like it's
it's a similar situation that anyone can start one. UM
Literally just google d u I school and there's a
wikiHow article called how to Start a d u I
School eight steps with pictures. So I mean it really
(45:08):
is like a similar situation, and that you don't have
to be some kind of licensed counselor or therapist to
do this, and these treatment programs you couldn't even really
call the treatment programs with these classes are required and
cost a lot of money. Um, when someone you know
gets a driving under the influence charge, you have to
take these. So it's sort of like a money, you know,
(45:29):
money faucet that is purporting to like be helpful to
individuals who you know. I mean, I guess the the
assumption is that if someone has had a d u
I and then in some way need help, I guess
because who else would put themselves in that situation. I
think that's oversimplifying the case, but it seems like these
(45:50):
there is a bit of you know, palms to be
greased in this kind of situation too. But I know
it's not one to one, but I just wanted to
bring that up. Yeah, the interesting part there is if
you think about it, um, I would assume that those uh,
those d Y courses are not paid by insurance, So
then if someone is getting built, then there's a ceiling, right,
(46:12):
because you're only able to build the individual individual. That's
a good point, and you can make more money because
you're messing with incredibly wealthy insurance companies at this point,
you know what I mean. I wonder if anybody's tried
to get the big boys involved, as anyone like called
up Blue Cross, Blue Shield and said, hey, you know
it's crazy, Tom's sober home. Uh got an offer for
(46:37):
you guys, put me on the phone with your CEO.
But it's weird because in the end, the insurance companies
are just dishing out so much money. You think they
have an incentive to put a complete stop to this stuff,
or to the least the abuses of it, right, But
they're also you know, overwhelmed because of how quickly this
this grew, you know what I mean. And yeah, they
(46:59):
would have, like we said earlier, they would be the
players who had the incentive to stop this, right because
they and taxpayers and people's families are are falling victim
to this scheme on the financial end. This leads us
to the current situation. The immediate question is what now.
(47:23):
So we know this stuff is true, we know what's happening,
we know it is a level of systemic corruption in
some ways, so what is to be done? Fortunately, folks
were glad to report that there is more national attention
on this massive problem. It's not just Florida, it's not
just California, it's not just Ohio. It's not just one
(47:45):
weird part of town in your neck of the woods.
It is occurring in states across the US, and some
of these criminals are being successfully prosecuted. We found cases
um about like we found high profile cases the last
several years, and they're being indicted. Uh, they're being charged
(48:06):
with pretty heavy crimes like us In Ohio there were
six people who were indicted for healthcare fraud to the
tune of forty eight million dollars. You know what I mean.
That's that's a lot of people in a sober home
pain two a month when you think about it, So
it gives you a sense of the scale a victimization here.
(48:31):
And you know, the thing that gets me about this
is this problem is also a huge hindrance to thousands
very well intentioned professionals who are working not for the
money there there because they want to make the world
a better place, or something happened to them or a
loved win personally that made this the number one mission
(48:54):
in their lives. Like, it's like people who do social work.
Nobody is getting into social work because they think that's
the fastest route to buy in their first yacht. And
these folks who are work the majority of the people
in this industry are doing their level best and they
don't have the support they need. They're they're often underpaid,
(49:16):
and they and then adding insult to injury, they can
get unfairly lumped in with scam artists in criminals. They
also have to deal with the effects of the corrupt
part of the industry around them, Right if they're trying
to help an individual get clean or or or help
themselves get through to the next stage of their life
(49:39):
and the rest of the corruption is just working exactly
against that. How do how do you actually how are
you successful? Yeah? Like you're you're working fifty plus hours
a week and you're not corrupt, and you're in an
area where you know there are body brokers active, where
(49:59):
the are scam artists running these sober homes? Do you
have like do you have a list? And you just
do your best to steer your patients away from those places.
And how do you how can you establish to them
that you are trustworthy right because they may be aware
of this kind of system, but luckily the public itself
(50:23):
is becoming more aware of this conspiracy. I just learned
about a res a film that came out recently called
Body Brokers, which is exactly it's about, exactly what today's
episode is about. I haven't checked it out, but the
reviews are good. If you want to learn more about it,
do please check it out. Let us know what you think.
(50:45):
It follows the story of someone who is addicted to
heroin who makes is trying to make an effort to
get clean, but slowly comes to realize that his very sobriety.
It's being sold to the highest bidder, and as situation
currently stands, if you are struggling with addiction we say
this at the end of every episode that we do
(51:07):
dealing with mental health or substance abuse, Please know you're
not alone. There are resources out there to help you,
and you are worth it. Nothing in today's show should
be mistaken for medical advice. We are well intentioned, but
we are not experts. Instead, please research any in all
treatment facilities that you might be considering and don't hesitate
(51:30):
to reach out to the people who are waiting to
help you right now. If you live in the US,
please consider calling places like one eight hundred six six
to help. That's one eight hundred six six to four
three five seven. That is a seven three sixty five
days a year treatment referral program and information service. It
(51:53):
has the unfortunately awkward name of the sal CASA National Helpline.
Oh my guy, is that an acronym? Ben? Yeah, you know,
we love acronyms on the show. It's just it's a
weird one. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. They're
doing good work. They just didn't spend a lot of
time on the acronym I think. Yeah. So yeah, call
(52:16):
them anytime, any day if you'd like to reach out
to us, to talk to us about, you know, what
you've experienced. We would love to hear what you have
to say. What you've been through. Um, we'd love to
know what you've seen. Have you been to a sober
living home? Have you gone through one of these treatment facilities?
Are gotten caught up in the shuffle? Do you work
(52:36):
for an insurance company? Have you seen abuses by some
of these treatment centers? We'd love to hear from you. Two.
You can reach out to us over social media on
Twitter and Facebook, we are conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram were
Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you'd like to reach out to
us via telephone, we have one of those two. It's right.
You can call one eight three three st d w
y t K. You've got three minutes to leave your
(52:58):
message makes or to let us know what to call
you and that it's okay to use your voice on
the show, and you might end up at one of
our weekly listener mail episodes. Try to keep your message
within that three minutes if you can. If you have
a message you'd prefer to send to us directly, UM
that isn't a story or something that you'd want to
be included on the listener voicemail episodes, you can do
that as well by sending us a good old fashioned email.
(53:21):
And while you're online and feeling generous, feel free to
leave us a review on Apple Podcast. They do make
a difference. Every little bit helps. We surely appreciate your time.
Our email address, as we always like to end with,
is conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com. Stuff they
(53:58):
don't want you to know is a production of i
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you, You
are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. This episode is a heavy one. Please
know that from the offset, we feel it is important.
(00:48):
We also need to establish at the very beginning two things. First,
nothing in this episode should be mistaken for any sort
of medical advice. Uh. There are medical professionals who are willing,
more than willing to provide assistance. Will tell you how
to contact them at the end of the episode. Secondly,
(01:09):
this is not a hit piece on thousands and thousands
of experts working, often tirelessly, often underpaid to help people
escape harrowing cycles of addiction, and today's episode involves addiction.
These are sometimes explicit stories, but they're important stories, and
(01:31):
they're often not acknowledged in the mass media in a
way that is not exploitative. According to the National Survey
on Drug Use and Health, over nineteen point seven million
Americans aged twelve or older battled some sort of substance
use disorder in twenty seventeen, and you can find the
(01:52):
estimates range widely. There's also another claim that fifty three
million Americans aged twelve plus where U s a drug
abusers in that seems like a high rise. So the
numbers vary here depending on which source you go to.
But I think we can all acknowledge that substance abuse
(02:14):
is a huge problem, one that has become exacerbated in
these our days of pandemic. I mean, would you guys
agree it's just kind of part and parcel with the
way our country treats like mental health or it's just
not taken very seriously. And you know, I mean, the
pandemic was not only a biological health crisis, I guess,
(02:36):
but it's also become in snowballed into a mental health crisis.
And what is addiction if not a signpost of some
struggle with mental health. And I mean we've seen the stats.
It's absolutely ballooned in terms of like people falling back
into old habits who maybe had sought treatment in the
past or maybe off of the uh, off of that substance,
(03:00):
whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever. And then because
of being cooped up and the you know, insecurity of
what the future holds and employment and all of that stuff,
people kind of fell back into those old patterns. It
makes absolute sense. But I don't think it's being addressed,
you know, in the ways that some other countries addressed
things like that are taken seriously. Um, I don't know that.
(03:20):
Maybe I'm sorry if I sound soap boxy about it,
but I don't really feel strongly about it, and it's
something that I've seen throughout my life and it's something
that I think has been stigmatized in a really nasty way,
and I think it's time for a change. I don't
think it's soap boxy. I think we're all on the
same page today. Now, what what What are your gr thoughts.
I agree that it is a It is a major
(03:41):
macro problem for the United States, substance abuse and use.
It is an even more harrowing micro problem, you know,
on the personal level, on the individual and I just
want to make the point that you know, we we
we made we were being very open with everyone here.
(04:03):
We are not targeting anyone who's attempting to help people
who are using drugs or abusing drugs. Were also not
targeting the individual person if you're listening out there who
has struggled with, you know, abusing a substance in one
way or another. I just want to make that really clear. Yeah,
it's never helpful to do so. Really, if you think
(04:24):
about it, yelling at people, bullying them, mocking them never
changes them for the better. That is, that is a
truth of the human species. And to the point about
mental health disorders, UH, there is a co occurrence right
wrapped up in substance abuse disorders. The numbers I just
(04:47):
gave at the top have fluctuated over time in response
to larger nationwide events such as an economic depression, a pandemic, or,
as we proved pretty conclusively vous episode, a widespread conspiracy
to hook people on opioids. Factors like this can all
influence rates of addiction, and luckily, there are experts, doctors,
(05:10):
therapists working literally around the clock to help people free
themselves from these dangerous, sometimes fatal cycles of abuse. In fact,
there is an entire industry UH surrounding this concept, and
today's episode is about just that the rehab industry. Here
(05:31):
are the facts. That's right. This industry that we're talking
about today is a forty two billion dollar industry. And
as we said, as the problems have ballooned UM in
recent decades, so has the industry. UM. Because let's remember
that US insurance is privatized and uh, the healthcare system
(05:54):
is privatized and all for profit UM. So insurance be
and accepting rehab claims UM. But it's it's still not
the same as it's like having all of it covered
kind of, you know. I mean, you get a little
supplements and maybe there are certain providers that are quote
unquote in network, and as we're going to discuss today,
(06:15):
some of those aren't necessarily ones with the best intentions
for the patient. Maybe at least when you dig a
little deeper, UM. Increased coverage from Medicaid and the a
c A, the Affordable Care Act, in tandem with what
you talked about, then that opioid epidemic has you know,
what could be seen as a positive thing on the
(06:36):
surfaces fueled growing access to treatment UM as well as
that need for treatment. Right, Yeah, that's right insurance companies
under the A C. A and another Act that we'll
talk about today. Uh, they were mandated to provide treatment.
But of course, the system this large will always be
(06:56):
no matter how well intentioned, it will always be imperfect.
By the rehabilitation industry is projected to reach of fifty
three billion dollars in the US alone, with states providing
most of the funding, which means regardless how of how
you feel about rehabilitation as a concept or about treatment
(07:19):
centers in specific, if you live in the US, you
are paying for this. Oddly enough, this was may surprise
some of us in the crowd. Today, this industry is
not yet heavily monopolized. There's so it's weird because so
many other large industries are the funeral industry, the automotive industry.
(07:41):
You know, there there's a massive slice of the pie
that goes to a few big players. Usually there are
some big rehab chains out there, like nine or so,
but the industry is mostly made up of much smaller operations,
and as it grew over time, it became more specialized.
(08:02):
Right those what you know. I'm sure when you think
of things like Betty Ford, you might think of drug
addiction or substance abuse, but they're also treatment centers that
specialize in things like sex addiction or internet addiction, gambling problems.
There was one that I was interested to find, conspiracy
theory addiction. Have you guys heard about those centers or
(08:24):
those treatment programs? Oh, my gosh, no, but I can
see it. I mean we've seen it with things like
Q and On and people that kind of you know,
get a strange from their families because they're obsessed with
this kind of stuff. Yeah, it definitely feels like a
mental health facility more than any kind of even a
rehab to me. Yeah, and these things can be you know,
wrapped up right. It's it can be difficult to extricate
(08:48):
the two. But yeah, in the post qu and On world,
this has happened. We've had a lot of We've got
a lot of our fellow conspiracy realists who may have
lost contact with friends or family members because of these
kinds of beliefs or even flat earth theory, which you know,
people dunk on all the time, rightly so, but for
people really believe it, it can lead to estrangement, nicotine addiction,
(09:12):
anxiety disorders, eating disorders. The list goes on. I think
it's a very important point that you may have been
about this industry not being monopolized, because what that is
going to do rather than having these glithes in the
industry that kind of controlling how much money you can
make essentially in a facility, because they make a certain
(09:34):
amount of money, they charge certain prices. You know, it's
a standard that basically gets set when there's a monopoly
or you know, a couple of big companies. In this case,
everybody is essentially vying for market share and share and
getting you know, a similar amount of market share within
the industry. So everybody is pushing as hard as they
(09:55):
can to get as many patients or clients, customers, whatever
you want to refer to. You know, somebody who would
be going to one of these facilities, they are they're
trying as hard as they can to get as many
people as they can. Similar issue with private prisons, right uh,
(10:16):
this this is a huge, increasingly well known market and
it's often private. As you said, Matt treatment can be
very expensive, like the Betty Ford clinic right where you'll
you'll see celebrities in the news going to betty Ford
because of maybe a relapse or struggle with some sort
(10:38):
of addiction, or if we're being cynical, sometimes to engage
in some pr after a something has smirched their reputation.
But look, folks, at the offset, there is an absolute,
definite need for these programs, and there is no escaping
the simple fact that rehabilitation has literally really saved people's lives.
(11:02):
There are people right now that you may know there.
There may be people listening today who are alive now
because they received care and treatment. But there's more to
the story, and it's an important aspect of the story.
Like let's say you have a loved one or family
member in need of help. You might be overwhelmed by
(11:26):
the sheer flood of conflicting, contradictory advice you get from
all corners about what to do next. In a way,
it's like the experience of expecting a child. Right, you
have people come out of the woodwork swearing by some
very weird stuff in a very authoritative way. But where
(11:46):
does that authority come from. That's where we see a
lot of claims and criticisms originate. There was a wonderful
piece a while back on last week Tonight wh you
all know we're big fans of that, see, and it
showed out numerous rehabilitation facilities struggle with not just credibility,
(12:07):
but with accountability. Yeah, there's a professor emeritus at the
University of New Mexico named William R. Miller who is
mentioned in that In that piece, he contacted several rehab
centers and he was attempting to learn more about their
success rates, because a lot of these facilities claim that
they've got just a large number of percentage of people
(12:30):
that go through their facility and then get out clean
and they can they live on their lives without ever
having to deal with abuse. Again. Well, he found that
multiple centers for various types of addiction or disorders as
we listed earlier, they claimed this high success rate and
the lowest claims the lowest claims of success rates were
(12:53):
around eight, meaning those those these places considered eighty percent
of their patients essentially cured, right, and and that's for
the long term, that's not like cured for a couple
of months, that is, you don't got to deal with
it anymore. But when professor Miller asked for data to
back up these various claims, he found that absolutely zero
(13:17):
of the places he had contact and reach out to
had data to actually back up these claims, or at
least data they were willing to share. I guess the
safest phrase would be kind of what you said, long
term recovery, right, instead of necessarily cured to be fair,
to be painfully fair. That does not automatically make these
(13:37):
claims untrue. But it's pretty troubling to note, isn't it
that at the very least, there wasn't much effort to
track or document anything, and they're dealing with people's lives.
That's where some of the criticism begins, but it is
far far from where the criticism ends. So we're gonna
pause for word from our sponsor and we'll die eve
(14:00):
into the dark often unreported conspiracies surrounding rehab. Here's where
it gets crazy. Standards, right, who needs them? Come on standards?
Let's just wing it. I've thought standards were important, guys.
(14:22):
I thought that's to how you measure things with a standard. No, No,
let's let's make it up as the mood strikes us, right, Like,
maybe let's go pet horses that. Yeah, you know that
that equine therapy does help sometimes. Yeah, if you if
you like horses. I guess that's true. You do need
to at least not be afraid of a horse. But
(14:44):
but I'm just putting it out there. And we've talked
about this before. My wife, who's a school psychologist, has
seen equine therapy work wonders for younger children. Oh yeah,
and there's a there's a great movement here in Atlanta
that my family has participated in in helping kids from
the inner city get out and learn how to work
(15:06):
with horses and how to work on farms. I'm thinking
of that John Oliver piece because there's a great segment
in this interview where there's this person who went through
a treatment center that had equine therapy, and in very
crass terms, he talks about how it did absolutely nothing
and he hates horses. It's it's a classic if you
(15:30):
watch it, but it's it's a serious thing. There was
no there was no law about whether or not you
could or could not use equine therapy. There was also
no standard for what constituted success. There was no data
and no studies that proved the efficacy of this. That
(15:50):
doesn't mean it's bad, that doesn't mean it doesn't work,
but that means there wasn't much due diligence put into
figuring out what it actually did for patients. And might
seem strange, right that rehab facilities can make so much
money year over year without backing up their own claims
of success. But that's unfortunately not surprising when you consider
(16:14):
this profoundly troubling fact as we record right now, there
are absolutely no federal standards across the board for counseling
practices or rehab programs, zero zip, zilch data. Yeah, it's
even more extreme than that. Some states don't even require
high school degree or any kind of you know, mental
(16:38):
health training or um, you know, pub social work kind
of background to become an addiction counselor in California, for example,
as long as you're operating privately and dealing directly with
patients who pay directly to you. UM, just about anybody
can start an outpatient center. And it's not it doesn't
(16:58):
necessarily point as some kind of you know, insane level
of corruption at the state level. UM. It's just a
thing that we see oftentimes when an industry or demand
for an industry outpaces the infrastructure that's in place or
the regulations that are in place for for that industry. UM.
So a lot of the regulators that that are you know,
(17:20):
installed to uh oversee these kinds of operations just weren't
ready for this huge growth. It's this ballooning of this
you know, rehab industry UM and just became backlogged and overwhelmed. Uh.
Not to mention insurance companies being in the similar boat,
but like you said, Ben, despite good intentions, UM, these
(17:41):
private for profit entities often make their money by denying
fraudulent claims. And it's complicated further by the fact that
you know, insurance companies, being private for profit organizations, make
money or the very least, you know, don't have to
pay out money by investigating and denying fraudulent claims. So
(18:03):
they do have incentives to crack down on and deny
treatment that they see as unsound or abusive. And yet
that backlog still is a problem because these investigations are
horror conducted by people and if they are absolutely underwater
and there, you know, workload is overwhelming, some things are
(18:24):
going to fall through the cracks or it's going to
take a very long time to actually track down. And
in the meantime, you know, everything kind of moved forward, right,
that's true, and experts recognize this problem. There's a guy
named Dr Mark Willenbring, who was the former director of
Treatment Research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,
(18:45):
who explicitly said, there's nothing professional or evidence based about
counseling programs, and without these sorts of standards, and without
these standards being enforced, things can get uncomfortably and dangerously
wild west pretty quickly. Like if you are entering a
(19:08):
treatment facility now in the current day, there's nothing really
stopping the administrators they're from subjecting you to treatment that
has been proven to do more harm than good. We
found one study that might be familiar to people about
something called confrontational strategies. This one was new to me,
(19:33):
but it apparently it originates in the sixties and seventies.
I think this is the concept that a counselor essentially
would give very frank feedback to someone, let's say, suffering
from a substance addiction. Uh, but it could also be
just yelling expletives at them and judging their character, telling
(19:55):
them they're so wrong, telling them it's almost like I'm
imagining it's like one of those intervention TV shows, but
instead of giving people loving feedback like we want we
love you. This is why it hurts us that you're
dealing with this, This is how it hurts me. It's
more of just like you're you're terrible, and why are
(20:15):
you doing this? Yeah, like the the I used to
think of those as popcorn interventions, like you would see
a show like Dr Phil or something. We're going to
scare this bad kid straight. Uh. The issue with those,
you know, like we said at the top, is attacking
people often will not change their mind or incentivize them
(20:38):
towards the behavior you wish them to exhibit. It's it's
tough and this lack of oversight, you know, you see
it in other types of US treatment industries, like the
troubled team industry. In fact, one of our colleagues and
friends of the show, producer Josh Thain, is me out
(21:00):
with a podcast about a specific example of just how
harmful the troubled teen industry can become. It's a podcast
called Camp Hell and Awaki, which is coming out at
the end of this month. Highly recommended. Do check it out,
and it's really good, but it's brutal. It is maybe
(21:21):
not suitable for all listeners, but yeah, be be aware
of that. So this problem with standardization can have these
deadly consequences. When people who are treated as experts, even
with good intentions, base their ideas of treatment entirely on
(21:42):
their own personal perspective or on their own clinical experience
instead of data, instead of information compiled by experts, they
run the serious risk of putting patients in danger. I mean,
take uh, you know you mentioned intervention. There's so many
like celebrity rehab shows, right, and you know, they purport
(22:04):
to be about normalizing addiction and stuff. At the end
of the day, they're just kind of like a celebrity
Big Brother show kind of situation that's ultimately looked at
as entertainment, which I find kind of further alienates folks
going through this. But maybe that and maybe I'm wrong,
but the whole celebrity rehab house thing, it always seems
(22:25):
to be about like how much drama can we cause
it's the same attitude as like any other reality show.
It's all about creating, manufacturing these moments um for people's entertainment. Yeah,
you know, and that's I mean, that's harmful for the
people on the show, but it also you know, as
you said, old that can be harmful to the people
(22:46):
watching as well, not to mention exploitative take something like
celebrity rehab like you mentioned with Dr Drew, this program
used an approach that, accorded experts maya savits, wasn't backed
up by by data like they it wasn't proven to
(23:08):
be effective. And the unfortunate dark note there is that
more than thirteen percent of the patients involved in that
died after treatment, primarily due to overdoses. And it's tough
to know how bad that actually is only because you know,
(23:30):
we we heard the statistics from the other treatment facilities
that say around eight of people are quote unquote cured
when they leave a facility. Um and then you imagine
that of the patients from this show ended up dying
due to an overdose. I guess it's just it feels
like this is terrible, but it feels like it's on
(23:53):
par with statistics of of people who just who don't
get a lot out of a treatment facilit This problem
also means that treatment centers aren't required to offer alternative
treatments even when those methods or techniques are proven to
(24:14):
have efficacy, you know, like for instance, the administration of
a substance like methodont they're not. They're not. There's not
a law that says you're required to offer this because
research shows it works or something like that. But the
problems don't stop there, like we go If we go
back in and we dig through the data, we find
(24:36):
even more distressing things. So, okay, we I can't remember
where we've talked about this before, but whenever you read
a study, one of the first things you want to
check is whether it is self reported, like a poll
that is self reported. Berns taught us that it's all
(24:58):
at how a question is frame, right, and it's all
in how a person feels at the time, right, Are
they talking about their past self, their future self, or
their current self, because those are often three different people
who may have three different answers to a question depending
on how it's praised. This kind of applies to rehab facilities.
Those eight percent success rates that Matt mentioned earlier are
(25:22):
often entirely self reported, sometimes based on something as simple
as the clinic calling former patients to check in, which
means it's two layers of self reporting at that time,
and that can literally be all it is ring ring
how you doing So, what is the stop a patient
from just not telling the truth. It's a phone call.
(25:44):
That's a really tough thing. And I bet there are
a lot of people out there who have dealt with
a loved one who has done that very thing, where
you know they've gone through something, they've been through a facility,
you've you know, called to check in on them or
even gone to see them to check in on them,
and everything appears to be fine. They self report that
everything is fine, and then you learn later that it
(26:08):
was very much not. So that's a tough thing because
what what else? This is my only this is my question.
What else would you do? Would you have like mandatory
post drug screenings for patients in some way, or even
voluntary drug screenings? And I wonder how many how many
patients would accept that as just a new thing that
(26:28):
they do moving forward after treatment? Right? Like would there
should there be some kind of law baked in that
says after you go to a treatment facility, you need
to check in X amount of times for why abounts
of months or years? Uh, there's not. There's not a
lot out there like that. There's especially there's not like
(26:50):
a federal level thing about it so right now. The
fact of the matter is that a treatment facility in
the US, depending on to Knowle's point, which state it's in,
can pretty much claim to be whatever it wants to be,
and it can say whatever it wants to say about
the effectiveness of its treatment and its approach, and it
(27:12):
will often not be required to offer solid evidence that
these strategies even work, you know what I mean, not
just like not that they help patients, but that they
don't harm them. The burden of proof simply doesn't exist.
And then that's not to say, of course, the treatment
facilities are all somehow scams. Again, rehab has literally saved
(27:36):
people's lives, but there's no getting around it. Folks in
this business do have the opportunity to make a lot
of money without doing what they're saying they're going to do.
And this stuff matters and has absolute consequences, you know,
for people's in people's lives. American addiction Centers estimated eight
pcent of recovering addicts will relapse in a single year
(28:00):
after leaving our rehab facility. It's a pretty shocking statistic. Um.
But as we're going to discuss after the break, there's
a reason for this, and we're back. We talked a
little bit about corruption and conspiracy, and I think we've
(28:24):
we've done our best to make clear that this is
not saying the industry entirely is made up of bad actors,
but there are provable known cases of corruption, deep corruption,
and you know, to be completely candid, we like many
of our fellow listeners today, have had personal experience with
(28:49):
some of these systems, if not directly, then through our
relationships with our families or our loved ones. And the
conspiracies and the corruption, it's real. It's not a theory. Uh,
these things are happening likely as you hear today's episode. Yes,
(29:12):
And one of the places, one of the physical places
that we're going to focus on as we're talking about
this concept is South Florida and a couple of places
in Florida like Delray Beach and a lot of the
beaches that are just along the coast near there. And
as we're talking about these things, I am personally going
(29:34):
to be discussing experiences of a few close people in
my life who have been through many of these experiences.
So we're just gonna throw that in when it's contextual,
just to give you a heads up. But to begin,
we're gonna start with some reporting coming out of Vice.
That's right. Adam Jazinski, speaking to Vice, a veteran of
(29:57):
Florida's sober home industry, says that the business oftentimes is
uh corrupt to the core. He alleges that sober homes
weren't really so much safe spaces for patients and recovery
as they were what he describes, in his words, quote,
holding barns for kids to wait until they relapsed. Um.
(30:21):
And he claimed that many of these bad actors who
were operating these facilities were actually making these shady kind
of backroom deals with treatment centers and and again, in
his words, quote, unscrupulous people would ease that process along.
They'd come through with a bag of dope, get your
dirty urine, and sell you for two thousand bucks. Yeah,
(30:45):
so let's unpack that. Really. Does that literally mean they
would tempt you with drugs and then you know, with
the intention of making you get a dirty screen. Yeah,
that's one way it could work. There's a kickback process
that we can examine here. When they say sell you
for two thousand dollars, it means they're sending you from
(31:07):
that sober home as a relapse patient to a treatment
facility or back to a treatment facility because there's a
rentse and repeat cycle that can occur here. Florida has
absolutely been a hotbed for rehabilitation corruption in the past.
There is a harrowing seventeen NBC News investigation that found
(31:29):
many vulnerable patients in Florida specifically have become quote grist
in an insurance fraud mill. And we can walk through
how it works. Unfortunately, the steps are well established and
these operations have been pretty successful. Yeah, and and before
we get into it, let's to find a couple of
(31:51):
things really quickly. So a treatment center or a rehab
facility is where a person would go to get treatment.
We've talked about that, where a person would go to
get all kinds of thing, anything from counseling to UH strategies.
They will learn strategies on how to cope with their addiction,
how to not UH indulge in the behaviors, or at
(32:12):
least strategies theoretically to do those things. A sober home,
at least in Florida is where a person would leave
a treatment facility and go live with others who are
doing the same thing, attempting to, as the name states,
live in a sober manner. And as we're going to learn,
oftentimes those places are not necessarily the it's not the
(32:35):
best environment for one to live cleanly. And we'll talk
about it. But I've got some personal experience here from
people who have been through this, this thing which is
often referred to as the Florida Shuffle. So let's get
into it. Yeah, this is where they caught like, so
what you know, As as Null said earlier, the concept
(32:57):
here gets pretty close to the idea of selling people.
And that's how some of these folks have thought of
that in the past. They've even been called body brokers.
That's the conventional term. So let's say you are, unfortunately
a corrupt treatment center. You saw the opportunity two commit
(33:21):
a kind of indirect insurance fraud, maybe with willing participants, right,
And what you do is you partner with these body
brokers and these operators of these widely unregulated sober homes,
and you start targeting people. You're looking for a specific
type of vulnerable person, someone struggling with addiction and someone
(33:46):
who also has good health insurance because again, these health
insurance companies will often pay out various sometimes exorbitant cost
that may be inflated by one person or another. So
these brokers and these sober home owners, they become predatory.
(34:09):
They start finding people who are trying to get clean
and they say, hey, I'll give you can stay here
for free or for a very low price. We'll give
you a gift card to go to the grocery store,
so you don't have to worry about food. You want
some cigarettes, do you want you know, uh, beauty treatments
like manicures, etcetera. Totally All you have to do in
(34:31):
return is go to this specific treatment center. This is
the one that we recommend and require. And then every
time that one of those people goes to that corrupt
treatment center, there's a kickback paid to the owner of
the sober home. You can start to see the cycle.
And this is something that was observed by a very
(34:55):
close person to me where they noticed that there were
p well in the working in the sober homes who
were being paid by the owners of that sober home
to go out and recruit, as you said, vulnerable people
with very good insurance to do this exact thing. This
is an eyewitness that I'm not going to talk about
(35:17):
who this person is, but just know that I was
on the phone with them five minutes before we started
recording this episode discussing this very thing, and they told
me that they saw this firsthand. And look, we're no
stranger to being overcharged in you know, certain health care facilities,
whether it be hospitals, and the sliding scale that goes
(35:39):
along with like how much does an asperacause it depends.
It's like airline tickets, you know, no one knows at all.
There's so many factors can go into it, and you
can always argue your way out of it, but it's like,
why can't it just be standardized? And that's the same
deal here. Not only UM are patients kind of treated
like commodities. Uh, These treatment centers build their insurance companies
(36:02):
tens of thousands of dollars for just that kind of stuff,
whether it be questionable counseling without any kind of real background,
like we're talking about earlier or expensive and at times
absolutely unnecessary drug screens. And then of course things like uh,
laboratory tests or what are often referred to as quote
(36:23):
exotic laboratory tests. I'm not quite sure what that would
entail UM. But right, like, I mean, you know they
you were at the mercy of the proprietors of these facilities,
who you know, would argue that these are all necessary
steps to ensure that someone is on the road to recovery, etcetera. UM.
But it's sort of like you know a lot of
(36:43):
those uh kind of mafia you know, construction deals you
always hear about where it's like they make their money
by overcharging for you know, a chair or like whatever
it might be, and it's hidden on this paperwork. And
because of the backlog we're talking about, or any kind
of bureaucratic backlog, sometimes these things go unnoticed for a
very very very long time. UM. And and the people
(37:04):
that are you know, responsible for these types of kind
of crooked practices don't get caught, if ever, or at
the very least, they keep doing it and doing damage
to people and the system for a long long time.
And State Attorney Dave Ehrenberg notes UM in an excellent
point that really mirrors what we've been talking about earlier.
(37:25):
These relapses, those of patients that relapse after leaving one
of these facilities. What is that if not great for business?
He says, quote, this is an entire industry that's been
corrupted by easy money. Unscrupulous actors have taken advantage of
well intended federal law and a lack of any good
law at the state level to profit off people at
(37:46):
the lowest stages of their lives. Maybe at the top
of the show, sounded the dismissive like, I just I'm
very suspicious of of of insurance in general. I feel
like things like co pays and having to navigate all
of the red tape just to get it a little
bit of help just to get treatment, and you end
up kind of paying, you know, these premiums, and then
every time I go to the doctor, I end up
(38:08):
getting a bill like for for however much it is.
It doesn't seem you know, it's certainly less than it
would be if I didn't have insurance at all, but
it's still sometimes a couple of hundred bucks. And I
looked down at the thing, and it's like, why wasn't
this covered? I don't understand. How do I even look
into why? Um So, these laws, while well intentioned, we're
still working within a very flawed insurance system that's only
(38:29):
just started to accept the idea of covering mental health
treatments like this, um, and it's it's it's it's broken,
and then the ability for it to keep up with
this new backlog of cases is just impeded by the
fact that it's already kind of broken. Um. So the
(38:49):
federal law that Aharnberg is referring to is not regulation. Um.
He's talking about the Affordable Care Act and the Mental
Health Parity Act of two thousand eight, And can you
help us unpack those those kind of the relationship between
those things. Yeah. Yeah, So earlier I had said there's
no federal level regulation the a c A and the
(39:13):
Mental Health Parity Act that that you just mentioned. They
some aspects of it might be considered controversial, but in
this context, here's what they did. They required private insurance
companies to cover things like substance abuse treatment, and they
(39:33):
prevented these companies from rejecting people who have pre existing
conditions related to that. And they had also allowed younger
people to stay on their parents insurance until they were
twenty six years old. So this meant that insurance companies
had to enter the game, right, and that's part of
what fueled the growth of this industry. And I would
(39:56):
agree with you. These laws are well intentioned, but without
regulation and oversight, they present this huge opportunity for corruption
and outright conspiracy. And it's an opportunity that it seems
numerous people and institutions have taken advantage of in recent years.
And again, look a taxpayers, yes, are footing the financial
(40:20):
bill here, but the patients are all too often paying
with their lives. And that's something you can't put a
price on no matter. You know what what these scammers
think about two thousand dollars per body. Yeah. In the
in NBC investigation, they specifically talked about a twenty four
year old woman who went to one of these facilities
(40:42):
and then ended up in one of these houses and
she owed eed there while at at the Silver Living House,
and she passed away and prior to her dying, which
was obviously tragic to the family, prior to her dying,
she reached out to her mom and said that one
(41:03):
of these guys who was working at the facility, I
think it was called Reflections. It's always a name something
like that, you know what I mean. Like the same
way there's a genre of names for uh for suburbs,
you know, like Shady Oaks or Park Lake. Uh. Reabsenters
have names like oh, I'm just I'm making some up here.
(41:26):
I hope they're not true, but uh something like Breeze
Hills or Milestones, right, sure. Yeah. Well, one of the
people there at the facility where she had been to
allegedly was supplying the women at that at that home
with drugs, specifically with opioids. And it was that same
(41:51):
cycle that we just outlined, and the people that I
know said that there was a similar thing occurring. Um
And we can get into even more detail about some
of these things, but it should be I would just
like to put out here that even in the best
case scenario, let's say one of these sober homes is
attempting to do the right thing and help people get through. Oftentimes,
(42:14):
there are five bedrooms in a home that used to
have only three bedrooms, but they turned it into five
bedroom home, and each one of these bedrooms is being
occupied by two, maybe three people, and each of those
people is paying the home let's say a hundred to
two hundred dollars. In the case of the people I know,
it is two hundred dollars per person per week, which
(42:36):
means that the individual or group that owns that home
is making tons of money on rent. Think about how
much rent money that is. That's so that's like five bedrooms,
three people in each bedroom, Let's say two hundred dollars,
so six hundred times five three thousand dollars a month, right,
(42:57):
really really nice money coming in. Then you add on
top of that any kind of kickbacks that come from
the cycles that can occur. You're talking about a big
incentive for someone to get into that game. Question, how
different is that? I know it's different in terms of
what these are in patient facilities, and it's it's more
(43:19):
about perpetuating the addiction than just robbing people of their money.
But I've always thought that the d u I schools
that are like mandated when people get you know, a
d u I UM are somewhat similarly crooked, and that
there's not much regulation there either, and you're basically forced
to take these classes and pay out all this money
(43:42):
that is to a private for profit company just happens
to have a cop contract with a state or government,
you know. Entity do you see any parallels between these
two or am I am I misreading this? It doesn't
feel like the same thing to me. Just I don't know.
I don't know what essentially a d u I school is.
I've I have only I'm only aware of defensive driving schools,
(44:04):
which is a similar mandated thing. I don't think that
one could be corrupted in the same way. Yeah, it's interesting.
I I imagine there could be a situation where someone
is staying so a sober home. You're you're supposed to
be staying there while you're taking out patient treatment. That's
why it's not regulated the same way, and it has
(44:26):
a lot to do with Florida's Fair Housing Act. But
I could see a situation maybe when someone is in
UM an alcohol rehabilitation program and it's out patients, but
they're required to go with this specific center because it's
in partnership with their sober home. I could see them
also being required to go to a specific school maybe
(44:47):
and and maybe that's where they kickback occurs. I'm sorry,
and maybe I wasn't clear all all I'm saying. I
know that that these d u I schools like it's
it's a similar situation that anyone can start one. UM
Literally just google d u I school and there's a
wikiHow article called how to Start a d u I
School eight steps with pictures. So I mean it really
(45:08):
is like a similar situation, and that you don't have
to be some kind of licensed counselor or therapist to
do this, and these treatment programs you couldn't even really
call the treatment programs with these classes are required and
cost a lot of money. Um, when someone you know
gets a driving under the influence charge, you have to
take these. So it's sort of like a money, you know,
(45:29):
money faucet that is purporting to like be helpful to
individuals who you know. I mean, I guess the the
assumption is that if someone has had a d u
I and then in some way need help, I guess
because who else would put themselves in that situation. I
think that's oversimplifying the case, but it seems like these
(45:50):
there is a bit of you know, palms to be
greased in this kind of situation too. But I know
it's not one to one, but I just wanted to
bring that up. Yeah, the interesting part there is if
you think about it, um, I would assume that those uh,
those d Y courses are not paid by insurance, So
then if someone is getting built, then there's a ceiling, right,
(46:12):
because you're only able to build the individual individual. That's
a good point, and you can make more money because
you're messing with incredibly wealthy insurance companies at this point,
you know what I mean. I wonder if anybody's tried
to get the big boys involved, as anyone like called
up Blue Cross, Blue Shield and said, hey, you know
it's crazy, Tom's sober home. Uh got an offer for
(46:37):
you guys, put me on the phone with your CEO.
But it's weird because in the end, the insurance companies
are just dishing out so much money. You think they
have an incentive to put a complete stop to this stuff,
or to the least the abuses of it, right, But
they're also you know, overwhelmed because of how quickly this
this grew, you know what I mean. And yeah, they
(46:59):
would have, like we said earlier, they would be the
players who had the incentive to stop this, right because
they and taxpayers and people's families are are falling victim
to this scheme on the financial end. This leads us
to the current situation. The immediate question is what now.
(47:23):
So we know this stuff is true, we know what's happening,
we know it is a level of systemic corruption in
some ways, so what is to be done? Fortunately, folks
were glad to report that there is more national attention
on this massive problem. It's not just Florida, it's not
just California, it's not just Ohio. It's not just one
(47:45):
weird part of town in your neck of the woods.
It is occurring in states across the US, and some
of these criminals are being successfully prosecuted. We found cases
um about like we found high profile cases the last
several years, and they're being indicted. Uh, they're being charged
(48:06):
with pretty heavy crimes like us In Ohio there were
six people who were indicted for healthcare fraud to the
tune of forty eight million dollars. You know what I mean.
That's that's a lot of people in a sober home
pain two a month when you think about it, So
it gives you a sense of the scale a victimization here.
(48:31):
And you know, the thing that gets me about this
is this problem is also a huge hindrance to thousands
very well intentioned professionals who are working not for the
money there there because they want to make the world
a better place, or something happened to them or a
loved win personally that made this the number one mission
(48:54):
in their lives. Like, it's like people who do social work.
Nobody is getting into social work because they think that's
the fastest route to buy in their first yacht. And
these folks who are work the majority of the people
in this industry are doing their level best and they
don't have the support they need. They're they're often underpaid,
(49:16):
and they and then adding insult to injury, they can
get unfairly lumped in with scam artists in criminals. They
also have to deal with the effects of the corrupt
part of the industry around them, Right if they're trying
to help an individual get clean or or or help
themselves get through to the next stage of their life
(49:39):
and the rest of the corruption is just working exactly
against that. How do how do you actually how are
you successful? Yeah? Like you're you're working fifty plus hours
a week and you're not corrupt, and you're in an
area where you know there are body brokers active, where
(49:59):
the are scam artists running these sober homes? Do you
have like do you have a list? And you just
do your best to steer your patients away from those places.
And how do you how can you establish to them
that you are trustworthy right because they may be aware
of this kind of system, but luckily the public itself
(50:23):
is becoming more aware of this conspiracy. I just learned
about a res a film that came out recently called
Body Brokers, which is exactly it's about, exactly what today's
episode is about. I haven't checked it out, but the
reviews are good. If you want to learn more about it,
do please check it out. Let us know what you think.
(50:45):
It follows the story of someone who is addicted to
heroin who makes is trying to make an effort to
get clean, but slowly comes to realize that his very sobriety.
It's being sold to the highest bidder, and as situation
currently stands, if you are struggling with addiction we say
this at the end of every episode that we do
(51:07):
dealing with mental health or substance abuse, Please know you're
not alone. There are resources out there to help you,
and you are worth it. Nothing in today's show should
be mistaken for medical advice. We are well intentioned, but
we are not experts. Instead, please research any in all
treatment facilities that you might be considering and don't hesitate
(51:30):
to reach out to the people who are waiting to
help you right now. If you live in the US,
please consider calling places like one eight hundred six six
to help. That's one eight hundred six six to four
three five seven. That is a seven three sixty five
days a year treatment referral program and information service. It
(51:53):
has the unfortunately awkward name of the sal CASA National Helpline.
Oh my guy, is that an acronym? Ben? Yeah, you know,
we love acronyms on the show. It's just it's a
weird one. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. They're
doing good work. They just didn't spend a lot of
time on the acronym I think. Yeah. So yeah, call
(52:16):
them anytime, any day if you'd like to reach out
to us, to talk to us about, you know, what
you've experienced. We would love to hear what you have
to say. What you've been through. Um, we'd love to
know what you've seen. Have you been to a sober
living home? Have you gone through one of these treatment facilities?
Are gotten caught up in the shuffle? Do you work
(52:36):
for an insurance company? Have you seen abuses by some
of these treatment centers? We'd love to hear from you. Two.
You can reach out to us over social media on
Twitter and Facebook, we are conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram were
Conspiracy Stuff Show. If you'd like to reach out to
us via telephone, we have one of those two. It's right.
You can call one eight three three st d w
y t K. You've got three minutes to leave your
(52:58):
message makes or to let us know what to call
you and that it's okay to use your voice on
the show, and you might end up at one of
our weekly listener mail episodes. Try to keep your message
within that three minutes if you can. If you have
a message you'd prefer to send to us directly, UM
that isn't a story or something that you'd want to
be included on the listener voicemail episodes, you can do
that as well by sending us a good old fashioned email.
(53:21):
And while you're online and feeling generous, feel free to
leave us a review on Apple Podcast. They do make
a difference. Every little bit helps. We surely appreciate your time.
Our email address, as we always like to end with,
is conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com. Stuff they
(53:58):
don't want you to know is a production of i
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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