A drug addict prepares a needle to inject himself with heroin in front of a church in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. I(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
In the halls of power, the perception is we’re a bunch of cork-sniffing whiners.
NIMBYs. Squealers. Crybabies. The body brokering, drug abuse, human trafficking, insurance fraud, occasional death and general chaos attendant to poorly run addiction treatment homes we say are rampant in Southern California? It just isn’t real!
Despite the federal prosecutions. Despite the emergency calls and spasms of chaos. Despite the lawsuits. Despite the body counts.
Officials here on the Rehab Riviera have been working — for years — to convince officials there in Sacramento that, truly, California’s addiction treatment industry is plagued by scammers while state oversight is nearly non-existent, and those who allow it to continue have blood on their hands. Yes, lawmakers have passed new laws — which no one really enforces — but they’ve rejected myriad bills that could have professionalized the treatment system and set more watchful eyes on scofflaws.
“Maddening” does not begin to capture the level of frustration. But there glitters, in the near distance, a slim ray hope, one that SoCal officials await with the anticipation kids might reserve for Christmas morning: A report by the California State Auditor!
Seriously. More than a year ago, Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach, asked for an official examination of the California Department of Health Care Services, the agency that licenses and regulates addiction treatment homes. Just about anyone can open one, just about anywhere, and if something goes awry it can take months between a complaint and a visit from an analyst.
“I’ve held meetings in my district with local officials, community leaders and constituents all focused on how to be sure people who need help are getting real treatment and that businesses operating without a license in residential settings are held accountable,” Dixon said by email. “I am looking to this audit to inform me on future legislation and am anxiously awaiting the results.”
Us, too. SoCal officials have poured fervent hopes into this audit. According to its scoping documents, it will “provide independently developed and verified information related to the Department of Health Care Services’ oversight of licensed recovery and treatment facilities,” and will include, but not be limited to examining:
• The laws, rules and regulations relating to addiction treatment in California.
• DHCS’ processes for licensing and certifying alcohol and drug treatment facilities, and how it monitors those facilities (including whether licensing and certification are different for homes serving six or fewer people).
• DHCS’ process for investigating and resolving complaints, and how long that takes.
• DHCS’ process for inspecting licensed facilities, including the frequency of inspections and “whether it does so in person.”
• Whether DHCS evaluates the effectiveness of treatment and patient care at facilities.
That’s not all: The auditor is also scrutinizing DHCS’ license data to figure out if the same business owners, operators or management companies are circumventing laws that dictate …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
