The treatment industry profits $42 billion a year. Some of that pays for care. Too much of it pays for the illusion of care — built on coercion, shame, and the calculated exploitation of people at their most vulnerable. We name it here.
These are documented patterns — not isolated incidents. If you've experienced any of these, what happened to you has a name.
Treatment programs, sober living homes, and referral services paying each other for patient referrals — a practice that is illegal under federal law (42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b) but widespread. When your referral source is getting paid to send you somewhere, your wellbeing is not the variable being optimized. Their commission is.
Facilities that profit more from repeat admissions than from sustained recovery. Discharge policies designed to push people out before they're stable. Re-admission incentives that make relapse financially useful to the program. When your failure is their revenue, they are not aligned with your recovery.
Therapy modalities that use shame, public confrontation, isolation, or punishment as clinical tools. Sleep deprivation, excessive work assignments, and emotional abuse dressed up as "therapeutic community" norms. Some of these practices have roots in cults — not evidence-based medicine.
Billing for sessions that never happened. Charging for tests not ordered or conducted. Upcoding (billing for more expensive services than delivered). Some facilities test urine samples multiple times per day and bill each one separately. The bill goes to insurance; you're the product.
Treatment programs that categorically refuse to allow medication-assisted treatment — calling buprenorphine "just trading one drug for another" while ignoring decades of clinical evidence that it saves lives. This is not a clinical standard. It is ideology. And it kills people.
Peer support specialists and recovery coaches providing therapy. Facilities hiring staff without required licensure and calling them "counselors." States with weak oversight allow this. It endangers clients and violates the standards programs claim to operate under.
A program that won't answer these questions is telling you something important.
Your report doesn't require proof. It doesn't require a lawyer. It requires your truth — and we take every submission seriously. Reports contribute to the advocacy record that drives policy change.
Report Treatment AbuseEvery state has a behavioral health licensing board that regulates treatment facilities and clinical staff. File a complaint there for unlicensed practice, substandard care, or client rights violations. SAMHSA's helpline (1-800-662-4357) can also direct you to the right agency.
Know Your Rights →Every report filed is a data point that disrupts the narrative that "the system works." File yours.