Lawmakers renew call for stronger addiction treatment oversight as two Pa. providers charged

HARRISBURG — Two Philadelphia addiction treatment providers face criminal charges for allegedly bribing recovery homes for referrals and forcing patients into substandard care, prompting renewed calls from state lawmakers to strengthen oversight.

Southwest Nu-Stop and New Journeys in Recovery were both named by The Inquirer in a 2017 story that found people who ran recovery homes stripped people with substance use disorder of basic rights, told them which treatment facilities to attend, and threatened them with eviction if they didn’t comply. The people who ran those recovery homes would then receive illegal, under-the-table payments of hundreds of dollars per person monthly, while the addiction treatment facilities billed the government for clients’ care.

That story and others like it, a grand jury report made public by Attorney General Josh Shapiro on Thursday states, launched an audit by Community Behavioral Health, a nonprofit contracted by Philadelphia to manage behavioral health services for Medicaid recipients, which uncovered other problems. Southwest Nu-Stop Philadelphia Inc. and owner Lloyd Reid are now charged with Medicaid fraud. So is New Journeys in Recovery and its owner, Lawrence Gallagher.

Both Southwest Nu-Stop and New Journeys in Recovery are among roughly 800 addiction treatment facilities licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs. Before this week, members of the public who turned to the state agency would have had limited ways to know about the alleged problems.

Read more: https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2021/07/pa-philadelphia-addiction-treatment-providers-kickbacks-ddap-oversight/