Wednesday, May 10, 2017
7:30 AM – 8:30 AM
Breakfast in exhibit area
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Public Policy and the Law of Marketing Treatment Programs

Jeffrey C. Lynne, Esq, LynneLaw

For the aspiring treatment center start-up, gaining and maintaining traction within the marketplace can be daunting. Patient acquisition is the single-most important aspect of owning and operating a program, for without patients, there is no program. However, patient acquisition is also the place filled with landmines. Unlike a typical business, where one can offer a potential customer almost anything of value to try their services, providing or even offering anything of value to a patient to induce their patronage is unlawful. Certainly, providers must be held accountable for the actions of the “marketers” they employ, and to some degree, the law does place a burden upon treatment programs to ensure that their marketing “employees” are not themselves engaged in illegal behavior to secure patients for their employers. However, the policy to have a patient select his or her own provider based upon the quality of service delivery assumes that patients can readily differentiate between providers, and that facilities are able to fairly compete within the same market space. This also assumes that patient acquisition itself is a fair playing field. So, the question is posed – has the time come to regulate, and therefore accept, the worst-kept secret in behavioral healthcare?