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A Snapshot of the business and Drug Rehabs Marketing Side
Drug rehabs during 2019 and for approximately the last five (5) years have been experiencing a trend which has been infecting the financial health and welfare of the addiction treatment industry. Dale Redlich, CEO of Pay-2-Patient and well respected past treatment center owner for over 20 years provides this article with his insight on some issues that owners are facing in our industry with this article.
Drug rehabs have been experiencing a trend that has manifested itself in recent years with;
- downsizing
- bankruptcies
- selling off of assets
- staff firings
- lack of staff replacement
- lack of staff additions
- lower staff salaries
- changes in marketing techniques
- development of joint ventures with financially sound publicly traded companies
- mergers and acquisitions
In addition, there is a desperate attempt by many owners and operators of addiction treatment facilities (including the detoxification and lab segment) to develop new relationships. These include banking, investment, and other financial relationships which might result in an infusion of new capital into an otherwise unhealthy marketplace. Basically, inexperienced drug rehabs and operators where wasting financial resources in an attempt to “out do “ their competitors. They are trying to offer more and more luxury within their drug rehabs. They are attempting to compete for a very limited supply of high paying clients
This trend has and will continue to affect not only full-service outpatient, PHP, inpatient, and residential addiction treatment centers West Palm Beach and across the nation, but also all of the ancillary support businesses including, sober living facilities, halfway houses, and private practice therapists as well as labs.
Drug Rehabs Pain Points
The signs have been evident for a substantial time period, but the problem has been and will continue to grow more severe as time continues. The main pain points of drug rehabs are marketing and billing. These are the two hands that are feeding any addiction treatment center.
Many centers have poor drug rehab SEO that is costing them big dollars in the wasted marketing budget. The second biggest pain point is the abundance of money left on the table from substance abuse billing and utilization review. The biggest concern is that some owners think they have this under control. The reasons for this trend varies but in general, it can be seen as being attributable to a number of predictable factors such as;
- poor marketing strategies and drug rehab SEO solutions
- a severely growing level of competition for the same patients
- lack of education on the web marketing and search engine optimization
- changes in the number of payments made for treatment by the insurance industry
- new and far-reaching legislation which has severely limited the ability of such facilities to engage in traditional marketing
- a lack of sufficient capital from an operational standpoint
- rapid and unnecessary expansion
- an attempt to offer only the most high priced luxury
It may also be seen as a failure of the new wave of financially inexperienced and under capitalized drug rehabs and opiate detox West Palm Beach centers who have been unable to foresee such trends and also have miscalculated the effects of massive changes occurring in the insurance marketplace both for in-network and out of network providers.
Insurance Companies Controlling the Drug Rehabs
One area which evidences this trend in the insurance industry. It is the growing direction for providers to attempt to change from out of network to full in-network providers. Most facilities these days are desperately becoming only in-network providers even though the amount per day paid by the carriers for in-network benefits has steadily been falling.
No longer do the carriers have to devise methods to try to force drug rehabs to become in-network. It was only a few short years ago when the carriers were paying exorbitant amounts per day to out of network providers and the thought process of owners at that time was to remain out of network in order to reap the benefits of the absurd amounts of money which the carriers were paying for out of network benefits. This could not continue forever.
When Insurance Companies Send Payment Directly to Clients
In fact, there are some insurance carriers such as Federal Blue Cross and Empire in Florida which continued to pay large unsustainable amounts directly to centers clients. The carriers continue to issue their reimbursement checks directly to the patient or subscriber. This results in many cases with the insurance checks being cashed by the patient. Thus the drug rehabilitation center is out of their earned money. If you are in this situation you can contact Dale Redlich, CEO of Pay 2 Patient at 954-592-1921. They specialize in collecting from insurers that pay the patient directly.
Understanding Drug Rehabilitation Centers Money Owed
Obviously, this was and continues to damage the providers financially. They are rendering services in good faith but never receiving the checks from the carriers. The reality is that many providers did not even realize that their check-in reimbursement for services rendered had not even been sent to them by the carrier. Some of the providers are losing exorbitant amounts of money in this fashion. Many do not realize this when it is happening.
The result of all of the above circumstances is that the drug rehabs have split into the “have’s” and “have-nots”. If you attend industry events you will likely realize that not only have the attendance numbers plummeted but the actual exhibitors themselves. They are often comprised only of the larger most well funded (and often time owned by publicly traded companies). Many centers are looking for smaller, focused events that also provide business and drug rehab leads education to survive the competitive landscape. In addition, they need to implement strategies of how to properly prepare for these addiction conferences.
Allocating Drug Rehab Marketing Drug Rehab Marketing Dollars
It is unbelievably expensive for a facility to finance large numbers of their marketing staff to attend these events. Many are only marketing to other marketing staff from other facilities. This is financial lunacy, without getting educated on proven business and marketing strategies. Unless the provider has extremely deep pockets which some of them still do.
The savviest operators realize that the money spent on traditional marketing and attendance at events that do not provide proven business and drug rehab marketing practices. The money spent is much better utilized with drug rehabs leads, social media and other types of online selling of their services. One of the biggest mistakes they make is using boots on the ground as their main marketing strategy. Without a robust, healthy and planned marketing mix, many are at great risk of closing their doors.
Getting Control Over Debt Collection and Revenue Cycle Management
Substance abuse billing and revenue cycle management are critical areas for owners. So, where does this leave us? The purpose of this article is to educate drug rehabs on the vast amount of lost revenue that is left on the table. The key areas that need to be addressed are; billing, utilization review, and drug rehab SEO marketing.
However, at the same time that are certain methods which at almost no cost can result in the infusion of additional capital into a sagging P/L statement. Substance abuse billing and debt collection with revenue cycle management for drug rehabs is one potential partial solution to the financial problems being experienced in the healthcare industry and in particular, the addiction treatment industry.
The collection of a debt is a financial strategy which has been around since the time of the money lenders in biblical times. If a company lends money, or advanced money or fails to receive legitimate funds on component aspects of its business it should be entitled to take appropriate action steps to recover the resulting debt if such debt is attributable to the loan or advancement of funds to the potential debtor. There is nothing immoral about a company taking steps to collect its fair debt, In fact, it is business malpractice not to go after the fair debt which is owed.
What is Drug Rehab Revenue Cycle Management?
Revenue Cycle Management is a fancy way of describing the method of tracking accounts receivables. Utilizing such funds at the appropriate time to pay the operational internal debt on an ongoing and predictable basis is critical. Substance abuse billing and revenue cycle management are two key areas centers to look at closely. Drug rehabs are leaving 20-30% of their revenue on the table. Treatment centers need to evaluate their substance abuse billing every year. It is advantages to bring 2-3 billing providers every year.
Evaluating several different substance abuse billing and utilization companies will ensure there is no money left on the table. The insurance companies are playing games with reimbursements, and these companies on the front line. Many billing companies will get lazy after the low hanging fruit is gone. There are many drug rehabs that are owed big dollars. Not knowing how to code is only one of the issues causing this problem. This is one of the biggest areas causing centers to close across the nation. This is one of the topics we are covering in our upcoming addiction conferences EMP Series event on 1/22/19.
Reclaiming Precious Drug Rehabs Operating Capital
The problem experienced by the addiction treatment industry now in many cases is that the provider company has not taken sufficient steps to ensure that it has sufficient operating capital. The money gets spent in a variety of other ways as described above. And oftentimes there are is no margin of error for drug rehabs which results in layoffs and other dire consequences.
It defies our understanding of why a health care provider which is owed money would not take every reasonable and legal action to collect money which it is owed. It seems to be lunacy but at the least very bad business practice.
Reclaiming Drug Rehabs Receivables Doesn’t Cost Much
The return on investment to employ debt collection methods is so low as to beg for utilization. The process is very simple for drug rehabs, but at the same time there are Federal and State regulations which must be complied with and of course, the privacy of the patient/debtor needs to be protected. This can all be accomplished by utilization of the proper documentation.
Don’t get me wrong. It is not easy to collect the debt. Collections methods vary depending upon the type of debt, the age of the debt, the identity and location of the debtor, Federal and State Law, peculiarities of the court system, and other factors but the fact remains that the collection of debt can be “found’ money and help immensely in providing additional and needed revenue to the provider to help with the covering of operational expenses. All addiction treatment centers should have a third party look at their substance abuse billing and utilization review. This will uncover a tremendous about of lost revenue.
Addiction Conferences Educating Drug Rehabs Losing Business Marketing Focus
Operating drug rehabs is a difficult task. Operators of substance abuse treatment centers need ongoing education on the business and drug rehabs leads marketing side of behavioral health. New laws, regulations and knowing how the insurance companies are operating is paramount. Marketing, substance abuse billing and utilization review mean big money for drug rehabilitation centers. Evaluating these regularly will produce large checks of operating cash. The addiction EMP (ethical marketing practices) conference series addresses these issues.
BHNR has brought 14 successful addiction conferences to South Florida. These talk show host/town hall-style conferences provided proven business and marketing strategies to operators during the regulation of our industry in Florida. We are proud of these national addiction conferences.
Drug Rehabs Regaining Business Focus to Survive a New Industry
There is nothing dirty, or unseemly or embarrassing about drug rehabs taking every step possible to recover money which it is owed. After, all don ‘t companies which the provider owes money to try to collect such funds? And, if you’re worried about upsetting the debtor then think about the fact that your employees expect to be paid every week and in my own humble opinion those individuals are a lot more significant than the person who owes your facility money.
Whether you are after co-pays, deductibles, self-pay fees still owed, insurance checks which were sent to the patient, client loans, or other debt your company is entitled to take all lawful means to collect this money. Drug rehabs not only need to look at their collectibles, but also their substance abuse billing providers. This is one of the main reason centers are closing. The insurance companies are playing games with reimbursements.
Our goal is to educate addiction professionals on ethical business practices, provide useful resources, assist in connecting for new relationships, educate on evidenced-based treatment, fight against patient brokering, educate on ethical marketing practices (in this group, with our marketing and at our addiction conferences), and use our large voice to encourage industry self-regulation. This group has consumed a large amount of our time to build and maintain. We hope you will mutually support us by getting educated here and attending one of our Addiction Professional EMP conferences. Our next addiction conferences series event is on 1/22/19 in Costa Mesa, California.
Steve Wize is an author, speaker, and corporate wellness trainer who specializes in helping companies and individuals reach their full potential. After graduating with his Master’s degree from Pitt, Steve went on to become a licensed clinical social worker and has spent the past five years working in private practice. During this time, Steve designed his own unique curriculum in which he has used to create his book, and his business, Mental Fitness, LLC.
The addiction professional referral group is a trusted resource for business, drug rehab marketing, and administrative operating strategies. Our industry is experiencing unprecedented changes affecting the administration, business, and marketing operating procedures. Laissez-faire business strategies are no longer effective. Using the old business and marketing strategies puts organizations in our industry at great risk of closing their doors. We are seeing many addiction treatment centers and opiate detox and sober livings closing their doors. The organizations that are closing all have one thing in common. They stayed with business as usual tactics including boots on the ground marketing, call centers, and Adwords as their main strategies. They all suffered from Digital Darwinism.
The web is the absolute #1 resource to reach potential clients in any business. The number of people using the internet is growing astronomically every day. The light speed growth has caused severe marketing problems for almost every industry. Understanding how to effectively utilize the web to generate clients or customers is an overwhelming task. Almost all treatment centers and ancillary service providers in the substance abuse industry do not understand web marketing. Our industry has traditionally resorted to short-term solutions to their long-term problem of maintaining a census. They, almost always are looking for an instant return (30 days) on their marketing.
Almost every addiction treatment center owner understands 
The # mistake in drug rehab marketing is website development. When you build a house, you build it on concrete. Almost all drug rehab websites are built on sand. Almost all websites in our industry are built by website designers, not website developers. This critical and costly error is the fault of the treatment center owner and the marketing agencies they have used. As an owner, if you understood what needs to be done for proper website structure and 
The industry trend has been traditionally relying upon boots on the ground marketing. While this should be a part of your marketing mix, it should only be one piece. Above you see the astronomical numbers of people using the web and the amazing activity that is produced every day. It is impossible for outreach to obtain even 1% of these numbers. The small to medium players consensus is that we cannot compete with the big players because they are spending too much on web marketing. This is a huge misconception in our industry. The small to medium players can outperform the big players in some areas if they have;
Our industry is experiencing many paradigm shifts. It is critical that operators of drug rehabilitation centers, 
Executive education is key for owners and operators. Behavioral Health Network Resources also provides Addiction Executive conferences educating on these key areas. Our addiction conferences each have 5 proven Executive Thought Leaders presenting at each conference. These one-day conferences focus on the business and marketing side of our industry. We have hosted 14 conferences and the success has been the valuable content and the talk show host, town forum format. These conferences put together the minds of the 125-200 attendees in an open forum. We hope you will attend our next 
In any job, position or role getting out of your comfort zone enables you to grow personally and professionally. This can be difficult because human nature gravitates us towards our comfortable circles. At many substance abuse conferences, you see the same professionals forming in the same groups. Yes, it’s wonderful to chat with our familiar circles, however, it should not dominate your time at these events. Getting outside of the comfort zone, obtaining new tools, business education and forcing yourself to meet everyone in the room is paramount in the state of our industry.
One of the best ways for addiction conferences preparation is to connect prior to the event. Most professionals in our industry do not do this. You should at least reach out to your A’s and B’s through LinkedIn prior to the event. Say you want to visit their booth or meet with them at the conference. This soft introduction says you are a professional and you are interested in meeting them. You will also get an idea of who this new potential referral source is and have some background information to reference when you chat at the event.
Behavioral Health Network resources have been an addiction conferences provider for the last four years. In that time we have put on over 14 conferences attracting 150-200 at each event. They have gained the attention of CEO’s and Executives with over 150-200 attending each conference. This unique talk show host, town hall forum has become extremely popular. These addiction professional conferences cover “HOT” topics and provide attendees a chance to “ask the experts” any questions on better business practices, billing, drug testing, licensing, DCF, Accreditation, treatment, sales, marketing, and any other aspect of the addiction and behavioral health industry.
If your 
There are several reasons why addiction treatment centers do not understand or utilize drug rehab social media marketing correctly for rehab advertising. It is partly due to the many marketing companies that say they offer drug rehab social media marketing. Many just take your marketing dollars and do very little. This is often done by the large 
With 
Behavioral Health Network Resources does more than say we do social media. We have dominated Facebook and LinkedIn by example for over four years. We founded our company because of social media. We took the time to intimately learn Facebook and LinkedIn. On Facebook, we have five profiles with 25,000 addiction-related friends and own over 60 addiction-related groups with over 200,000 members. This is the best resources for 
Big brother is watching the drug and alcohol addiction treatment industry on many different levels affecting treatment calls. The strict patient brokering laws that were passed on July 1, 2017, for 
For 2020 many addiction treatment centers think they cannot compete with the big players in the sandbox due to their lack of education on proven drug rehab marketing strategies. They see the bigger players spending over six figures a month on addiction treatment marketing and resort to a quick fix . The quick fixes for their drug rehab lead generation include a buy rehab leads strategy from drug rehab call centers, soon to come again Google Ad Words and the 
If the small to medium treatment centers did not waste their time and money on the short-term solutions but instead invested in a long-term organic strategy they would be much better off. It’s an interesting situation if you consider that many of the leads generated from call centers are not a good fit for the treatment centers. In addition, some shady drug rehab call centers sell the same rehabilitation lead to many centers. Once the center starts to complain they are not receiving treatment leads, the drug rehab call centers concentrate on sending a few well-qualified leads. And now in Florida, it is illegal to sell the well-qualified calls which are verification of benefits (VOB Calls.) If you are an addiction treatment center in Florida and are buying VOB (verification of benefits) calls, or if you are buying calls from a call center based in Florida you are at great risk including legal problems, felony charges, high fines and jail time.
It’s unfortunate that the small to medium size treatment centers revert to using AdWords and a buy rehab leads strategy. Consider this, pay per click accounts for 1.91% of the addiction treatment calls from page one of Google. Many of these calls are not a good fit for the drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment centers. The first three organic listings on page one of Google account for almost 70% of the page one clicks. In addition, they need to be ranking in the Google 3-pack on page one. It takes time and knowledge to rank on page one of Google. Many of the large one trick pony marketing agencies who have a hard time retaining the best marketing talent gloss over these critical elements.
It is not enough to have an addiction treatment center marketing specialist, you need to research them and get behind the smoke and mirrors. You need tracking metrics on the back-end of your website. These show you exactly where your recovery leads are being generated and what is producing the treatment calls. We’ve had many drug rehab leads marketing clients that buy into exclusive listings on high gloss websites with a ton of listings and banner ads of their competitors. Some sites have heavy traffic and some have very little. Also, be aware of 
Your drug rehab leads should not only include targeting clients needing treatment, but also professional referral sources of front-line clinicians, private clinicians, EAP’s, Interventionists, LMHC, CAP’s, etc… The best way to achieve this is through the largest professional website in the world LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a definite must in the drug rehab marketing strategy.
If someone is trying to tell you they can perform drug rehab leads for your organization on social media, then you should be seeing them everywhere and know them. After all, you are their target audience. If they have not been in front of you already chances are they don’t have the audience and do not know how to utilize this medium.
Social media has changed the marketing world forever. If you can learn one thing from this post (content is KING) it will put you down the correct path to ensure social media marketing is a big component of your marketing mix. Your business should have a social reach in the millions with your drug rehab marketing strategy. It takes big numbers to generate leads. Many industry organizations do not include social media in their marketing mix making it one of the 
Industry organization’s need to take the reins on these social media platforms and include their own staff to build an audience. If you’re paying an agency to market for you, chances are extremely high they do not have the organic audience in our industry (professionals, or individuals seeking treatment.) Ask them to show you their audience that they have grown for their business. This will show if they are leading by example and truly understand how to perform social media marketing. If you are paying an agency, you better make sure they are growing an audience for you that is yours, otherwise, once you stop paying for paid advertising you will have nothing to show for your marketing dollars.
Drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers expect instant results that they are used to getting from pay per click and call center lead generation. Their addiction center treatment marketing is dependent on the instant calls from these two short-term solutions that they have to pay for over and over again. Before the Google restrictions in our industry, there were about 75 big time players spending $500,000-$1,500,000 a month in that big boy sandbox.
Treatment centers eventually realize the large cookie cutter 
These accreditation’s are extremely important for the treatment centers allowing them for better overall treatment for their clients, assists in gaining clients and makes them authority over their competition. Consultants charge $30,000 or more to get them through the accreditation processes. Drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers owners know that these are an absolute necessity for their behavioral health organizations. The second reason drug rehab owners hire consultants is that at some point they all realize the importance of marketing. Then, they quickly realize they are competing against big dollars being spent by the larger addiction treatment centers every month. They also start to realize they need an internet of things (IoT) electronic footprint driving targeted traffic to their website for their addiction treatment center marketing.
Why is it vital for addiction treatment centers, or detox’s staff to be published on high profile industry websites? This positions them as an expert in drug and alcohol addiction treatment. Citing and including them in your websites builds instant trust with potential clients. Also, getting published on other high authority websites increases Google ranking. One of the most difficult areas of drug rehab SEO for addiction treatment centers and ancillary service providers is getting those back-links pointing to their websites.
Spread out your drug and alcohol addiction treatment center marketing budget. Putting all your marketing dollars into one bucket like AdWords spells disaster. Many learned this mistake when Google restricted paid ads, some did not make the learning curve and had to close their doors. The centers that survived had good drug rehab consultants which put into place a diverse marketing strategy. Categorize your marketing into three buckets. This way when one bucket isn’t working you have the other two generating phone calls. Even with three buckets going on at the same time one, two or all three could fail at any given time. The three main buckets should be organic, boots on the ground and a paid advertising strategy.
After structure, you need to look at search engine optimization (SEO.) SEO is a complicated process and impossible to know all there is to know on the subject. Even the best drug rehab consultants only know a fraction of SEO. However, they do know the many best practices that can get you to the first page of Google. Google only reveals a few golden nuggets; the rest is best practices. We get 10-15 calls every week from drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers on marketing and consulting. Almost everyone says their on-page SEO is good. This is rarely the case. I always ask them if they have 
The last part of organic SEO is social media and this is an absolute must. According to Tech Crunch, people are spending over 
Almost every addiction treatment center puts most of their marketing efforts in boots on the ground tactics. While it should be in every drug and alcohol addiction treatment centers marketing mix, it should only be a portion of the marketing mix. All drug rehab consultants should be telling you to have diversity in your drug rehab lead generation. We see many centers using boots on the ground, Google Ad Words and call center lead generation.
Google Ad Words or pay per click (PPC) has paved the road for unprepared drug rehab marketing plans. Addiction treatment centers have notoriously used Ad Words in place of a good organic marketing plan. This is mind-boggling considering the paid Ad Words account for less than 5% of the clicks on Google. The first three organic slots account for a whopping 70%. Bing, Yahoo, and MSN are comparable to these numbers.
Drug rehab consultants should be putting in back-end analytics to measure efficiency. Keeping in mind the end goal is to understand your most elevated ROI. It is imperative to track lead generation sources that are converting into clients. It is critical to gauge the “first contact” when the individual seeking addiction treatment reached out.
The key to maximizing your ROI on marketing dollars is to know what is generating the most drug rehab leads, or calls. Call tracking can tell you where the potential client started and right through to where they called from. This is vital information for the marketing team. You can also assign a dollar value to the services sold to have dollars associated with conversions. It will also record the calls, so you can determine if admissions teams are doing a good job of converting clients. It also gives information on date, time, city, state, and much more. You can check out how this inexpensive valuable drug rehab call tracking tool is for your center.
Google analytics like call tracking provides information on addiction treatment centers websites. All drug rehab consultants should know how to read and utilize this vital information. It tells you real-time traffic, city, state, pages visited, where they came from, interests and more.
As an owner of an addiction treatment center, detox, or ancillary service provider, you are going to spend on the low-end hundreds of thousands of dollars on your marketing. Drug rehab consultants can put a proven marketing plan in place producing the best ROI and reduce waste. Consultants can tell you what works and what does not work. They can tell you how to get your website built with proper structure.
