The Collaborative for Effective Prescription Opioid Policies (CEPOP) partnered with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Caron Treatment Centers, and The Camden Center (the “Steering Committee”) to convene a wide-array of stakeholders around the issue of fraudulent and unethical activities in the substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and recovery space. There was consensus among Steering Committee members that these actions threaten to undermine legitimate recovery providers and services provided by reputable healthcare practitioners and centers. The roundtable aimed to survey perspectives and insights from well-established and reputable treatment providers, health insurance representatives, patient advocates and government relations professionals on this increasingly prominent public health issue.
The goals of the CEPOP–Payer–Provider Roundtable were to:
- Understand existing efforts on the state and federal level to address the issue of unethical actors in the substance use disorder treatment and recovery space;
- Develop actionable policy priorities to hold substance use disorder treatment and recovery providers accountable for providing high-quality services;
- Discuss how to improve barriers to entry for qualified, reputable individuals in the substance use disorder treatment and recovery space; and
- Propose potential solutions, including a “regulatory toolbox”, to raise the bar for entry into this field and mitigate risks and patient harms associated with substandard care from unethical resources and programs.
Download the Executive Summary.