Excerpted from Orange County Register
By Tony Saveedra and Teri Sforza
Petrie-Norris has joined forces with state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to push AB 1158, which would require licensed treatment centers and other clinics that receive government funding to maintain a minimum amount of insurance coverage. Standards of treatment and consumer protections would then be set to qualify for that insurance.
What Lara brings is a statewide enforcement staff of 300 people, enough manpower to enforce basic health rules in the industry — something that currently isn’t part of the state regulatory system.
“There is (now) a total lack of regulation and oversight in this space and people are dying as a result,” Petrie-Norris said.
Another strike at “bad actors” in the rehab world comes from Sen. Pat Bates, R-Laguna Niguel, who reintroduced Senate Bill 434, which would essentially forbid treatment programs from lying.
Hailed by activists as a long-overdue, common-sense measure, Bates’ bill would prohibit false advertising and marketing about such basics as where a center is located – “at the beach” can mean 15 miles away – and as vital as what services are offered.