There’s a difference between something interesting and comment-worthy versus a journalistic attempt to generate controversy and intrigue that people might buy into. There is not much of the former, but there is a lot of the latter. People in recovery from being victimized by horrible, greedy people is an interesting story. Unfortunately, this is far fetched and not really helpful to anyone.

There are three very safe assumptions that we can almost all agree on: First, there are a lot of people who want to live a life without active addiction. Second, many of them believe they need help creating a better life. Third, some providers of assistance to people in recovery make a bunch of money by providing that service.

There is probably nothing new about any of this. what’s new? Maybe this: We live in a time when the concept of privacy is changing rapidly. The lines shifted between what is said and what is not said, between what is shown on TV at 6 p.m. And public discussion about all sorts of things that were once considered private, including addiction, is front and center. This kind of “borderline” change invites a public discussion about addiction, gender identification and all sorts of things. Our culture has changed.

It also seems that the more “transparent” we become as a culture, the greater the tolerance and need for entertainment. Reality TV is getting more and more exciting and interesting. And our need for a good story is a product of human voracious appetites for stimulation. This leads us to confuse what is proven with what is entertaining.

There is a lot of entertaining stuff written about the addiction treatment industry, but not all of it is honest or even helpful. Look, the fact that addiction is now part of the public conversation is probably a good thing. Talking about it might be a good step towards treating it like any other health issue. No one is shocked, ashamed, or judged for dealing with arthritis, allergies, or cancer, but addiction invites all the ugliness into it.

So what is fact versus entertainment? What is wheat vs chaff? The “story,” the one injected into the public consciousness about people who recover, is that they are helpless as helpless victims of rich people who want to steal from insurance companies. Nor can I ignore that the story plays out in our culture at a time when the common belief was that only bad people had more money than they needed to live, that there were “good” people and “bad” people and that the factor differentiator was money. Good people = they don’t have a lot of money. Bad people = have a lot of money. And bad people can become good by donating money to good people.

Let’s go back to the last newspaper article: the man they say is a “bad” guy hasn’t been accused of anything. She had a picture of the man’s face. Is this for people to say it looks like he did something bad? I don’t understand the value there. This may be amusing, but worthless.

The lawsuit described in the article (to which the other party did not respond) says all kinds of things a person could say in a lawsuit. It may shock some people to learn that what lawyers say in lawsuits doesn’t have to be true. I did not see in the article the fact that the sued company is owed millions by the insurance company or that the parties have been trying to come up with terms to settle an unrelated business case for months. Seems relevant, but only if you want to discuss the facts. Otherwise, it’s just… entertainment.

And a little bit about insurance companies paying so much for poison lab services… Nobody tells the insurance company what to pay. They decide what to pay. Where is the story? Where is the villain, the victim? The story needs one, right? To be entertaining, there has to be a victim and a villain. That’s what makes it interesting, right? She makes it entertaining. This differs from reporting facts about an issue.

In the field of drug and alcohol treatment, serious elements of the truth are missing, because they do not sell, such as:

1. The therapy industry is undergoing tremendous change as it has expanded from providing psychotherapy services to providing medical services;

2. The challenges of insurance carrier and law enforcement activity are a major wake-up call for an industry that needs to be woken up to compliance and offer medical services in the same way that traditional medical providers are perceived by them driven by a scientifically validated and documented medical imperative. Doctors have played within these boundaries for many years, but treatment providers are new to what is required to provide medical services;

3. Providers who make a lot of money treating people during recovery do so almost entirely because they do a good job and know how to manage their expenses. Our society does not yet believe that health care providers should only work for nonprofits and be part of the “health care chaplain” (“If you really care, you can do it for free”);

4. Insurance companies were adept at managing public relations related to the treatment industry. In an era when insurance companies’ profits are breaking records, they often have no policies and procedures about how many or how much anything people should receive in recovery, but then refuse to pay and point fingers at the providers. Ironically, many providers plead with payers for such guidelines and have approached them to contract (at rates lower than what insurance companies pay!);

5. The insurance companies determine the amount to be paid for the services, not the providers; And

6. The owners of treatment centers and those in recovery do not speak with one voice and do not have effective political/legislative power. However, insurance companies wield enormous political and legislative power.

Despite a lot of talk that can sound very open when it comes to addiction, I’m not convinced that we’re actually open minded. The articles are about oversimplifying things and selling stories designed to entertain. There is a huge gap in the insurance benefits available to people recovering from addiction. The current pressure (refusals to pay, delays, and reductions) that insurance companies place on treatment providers, for example, is missing from any other aspect of health care.

In fact, the motivation challenges for providers in this area reflect the insurers’ view of addiction treatment as episodic rather than chronic. Payers do not challenge the treatment of diabetes as much as they challenge the treatment of addiction. Laws have been passed (the recent Sober Home Regulation Act) that reflect the fact that the state of Florida will not protect people in recovery who reside in sober homes (they have taken the case to an unregulated, unnamed “not-for-profit” entity). At the end of the day, there are no consequences to this kind of parade, as both the treatment industry and people in recovery are easy to deal with. They remain pariahs and lack any serious political presence.

If there is ever to be a meaningful treatment for addiction, the whole story needs to be told, and all players need to work together to agree on meaningful solutions. The problem with the treatment industry is not that there is a group of fat cats taking advantage of addicts. The problem is that our culture is more interested in pointing fingers and sticking our heads in the sand on this issue (imagine how real therapy can affect the prison bloc!) than we are in finding solutions. At the moment, there is no urgency to the issue of treatment (because it is not pressed). Instead, we just amuse ourselves.