House lawmakers are seeking ways to combat deceptive marketing techniques that make it harder for addicts to get treatment for opioid addiction.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight subcommittee held a hearing Tuesday on advertising and marketing among substance abuse treatment centers. The hearing comes after a yearlong investigation into marketing for such centers.
“As the committee dove deeper into the advertising and marketing practices within this industry we found a Pandora’s box of online advertisements, websites, phone numbers, lead generators, call centers, and television commercials,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., the committee chairman.
He said in some cases one company owned dozens and dozens of websites, some of which purported to be the best treatment in the country or claim a high success rate, with no evidence to back it up.
Another problem surrounds “patient brokering,” where a third-party call center recruits an addict and lures them to treatment facilities in return for financial kickbacks.
“In some of the worse cases, call aggregators or call centers may refer patients to facilities that don’t meet their needs based on a financial arrangement and once patients enter treatment they may be vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous business owners,” said Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., the subcommittee’s chairman.
Lawmakers said that best practices are needed in the substance abuse treatment center industry in order to curb such abuses.
“Some companies have looked at this devastating epidemic as an opportunity to solely make money,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the full committee’s top Democrat. “It also raises questions on how a perspective patient is supposed to navigate the countless number of treatment options.”
