Will an audit prove that California’s oversight of addiction services is as poor as SoCal claims?

A drug addict prepares a needle to inject himself with heroin in front of a church in Los Angeles’ Skid Row neighborhood. I(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The perception in the halls of power is that we are a bunch of cork-sniffing whiners.

NIMBYs. Beepers. Cry babies. The body mediation, drug abuse, human trafficking, insurance fraud, occasional deaths and general chaos that comes with poorly managed addiction treatment centers that we believe are rampant in Southern California? It’s just not real!

Despite the federal prosecutions. Despite the emergency calls and the outbreaks of chaos. Despite the lawsuits. Despite the body count.

Officials here at Rehab Riviera have been working – for years – to convince officials there in Sacramento that California’s addiction treatment industry is truly plagued by scammers, while state oversight is virtually non-existent, and that those who allow this to continue are adding blood to their have a head. their hands. Yes, lawmakers passed new laws — which no one really enforces — but they rejected countless bills that could have professionalized the treatment system and focused more watchful eyes on mock laws.

“Maddening” doesn’t begin to capture the level of frustration. But there glimmers, in the near distance, a small ray of hope, a hope that SoCal officials are waiting for with the expectation that children will be able to reserve it for Christmas morning: A report from the California State Auditor!

Serious. Just over a year ago, Assemblymember Diane Dixon, R-Newport Beach, asked for an official investigation from the California Department of Health Care Services, the agency that licenses and regulates addiction treatment facilities. Almost anyone can open one, virtually anywhere, and if something goes wrong it can take months between a complaint and an analyst visit.

“I’ve been holding meetings in my district with local officials, community leaders and voters, all focused on how to ensure that people who need help get real treatment and that businesses operating without permits in residential settings are held accountable ,” said Dixon. e-mail. “I look forward to this audit to inform future legislation and eagerly await the results.”

Us too. SoCal officials have pinned fervent hopes on this audit. According to the scoping documents, it will “provide independently developed and verified information regarding 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 governing addiction treatment in California.

• DHCS’s processes for licensing and certifications for alcohol and drug treatment facilities, and how it oversees these facilities (including whether licensing and certifications are different for homes with six or fewer people).

• DHCS’s process for investigating and resolving complaints, and how long that takes.

• The DHCS process for inspecting licensed facilities, including the frequency of inspections and “whether it does so personally.”

• Whether DHCS evaluates the effectiveness of treatment and patient care in institutions.

That’s not all: The auditor also examines DHCS licensing records to find out whether the same business owners, operators or management companies are circumventing laws requiring six or fewer customers per facility (by obtaining separate licenses for nearby properties that are effectively prohibited). part of the same – larger – treatment empire), and whether DHCS has a way to detect or prevent things like that.

The problem at hand is “overconcentration” – turning a residential area into treatment campuses, which people in Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Malibu can tell you a lot about. The auditor will check whether DHCS takes this into account and what the impact is on people’s ability to recover.

And there’s more! The auditor wants to know how often DHCS denies permits, and why? How often are licenses suspended or revoked, and why? Does it enforce sanctions against facilities that operate without a permit? How and what are the sanctions?

People during a hearing on California’s addiction treatment system in Costa Mesa in 2019. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The audit should have taken place months ago, but was shelved and then put back on track. Publication is scheduled for this fall, says Dana Simas, spokeswoman for the state auditor’s office — which technically started on Sunday, September 22 and ended on Saturday, December 21.

Local cities groaning under the weight of complaints about unruly facilities are hoping this will provide the hard, cold evidence to convince the many lawmakers in Sacramento who currently dismiss criticism as NIMBYism. Some are bracing for disappointment, certain the auditor will go easy on the DHCS and conclude that tragic outcomes are rare and everyone here is crazy.

We’re not so sure. We’re pretty big fans of the State Auditor. It has generated some very sharp (but polite) criticism – and there is so much to say here. The California Sober Living and Recovery Task Force has encouraged people to give testimonies to the auditors, and some rather devastating stories have been forwarded to them, including the tragic story of Brandon Nelson.

In 2018, 26-year-old Nelson was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder. His parents, Rose and Allen Nelson, were sold out by Sovereign Health for his treatment with promises of the highest level of mental health care: psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists. “Lies,” Rose Nelson says in the video.

He was released from a psychiatric facility in Laguna Beach on March 7 and entered an unlicensed Sovereign “faster mental facility” in San Clemente. Nelson failed to get his medication in time “so Sovereign could deliver the prescription to a pharmacy they owned,” suffered another mental breakdown, and was left unattended by Sovereign staffers who had no experience dealing with severe mental health conditions, the lawsuit they filed against Sovereign says.

Left alone, Nelson hung himself wearing sweatpants from the sprinkler system in his room on March 8, 2018. That top team consisted of guys with experience moving and building furniture, processing credit cards and painting houses, who performed CPR online. classes, who were too scared because his body was dangling from the ceiling to remember the address of the emergency center.

The Nelsons won an $11 million settlement against Sovereign. But his death wasn’t just Sovereign’s fault: California’s mental health system, and those who stubbornly refuse to raise the quality bar for the vulnerable people within it, failed him too.

Related articles

• News |

  Buena Park sober home suit: Fights got so bad, ‘I thought they were going to kill someone’

• News |

  Okay, California: we’re tired of waiting and will post your addiction treatment center reports ourselves