internet ethics in addiction treatment

Ethics In the Internet AgeTips and Tools to Safeguard Your Program’s Reputation

Colorado Springs Symposium - Feb. 1, 2016

The Problem… and the Solution• An Industry at the Crossroads• Treatment Marketing Challenges• Predatory Practices Online

• Code of Ethics• Leadership & Accountability• Next steps?

“…is filled with disturbing accounts of seriously addicted people getting very limited care at exhaustive costs and with uncertain results - but in my experience, they are accurate accounts.”

A. Thomas McLellan, PhDTreatment Research Institute

“…examines the untold billions that are being made of of families in crisis. With little regulation or science, the treatment industry has become a cash cow business that continues to grow while deaths pile up.”

“Ethics at the Crossroads” – Addiction Professional

• Paying bounties for referrals.• Buying and selling leads from funnel sites and call centers.• Large gifts to interventionists with whom a program works.• Call centers sharing patient info among treatment centers.• Urinalysis “labscam” - over-testing and over-billing.

Marketplace Challenges

• Shifting payer mix – managed care, out of network, private pay• Consolidation via mergers & acquisition• Industry growth via start-ups, increased competition • Uncertainty around ACA; residential as an “essential benefit.” • Impact of social media – today’s visible and vocal consumer

“Black Hat” Internet Marketing

Black hat SEO refers to the use of aggressive SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience, and which usually do not obey search engines guidelines.

Source: Webopedia.com


Phony street address so as to appear in a local search result Treatment programs posing as “rehab review” websites Utilizing or purchasing competitors brands in keyword searches Call aggregators posing as independent referral assistance Funnel sites – treatment companies posing as mission-driven

independent online directories


Keyword Stuffing: Over-using keywords in a repetitive fashion to trick search engine spiders into thinking the content is highly relevant. Sentences such as “treating addiction from our rehab addiction treatment center offering drug and alcohol rehab addiction treatment for those seeking treatment from their addiction.”

Gibberish to humans and clearly meant for indexing spiders.


Hidden text: Tiny text on a page that can’t be read by humans. Or using the same or similar color text as the background. Often times, this hidden text is inconsistent with the real text as it is intended to trick search engines.

Redirects & Cloaking: It is possible to submit page content to search engines that feed the directory but when a user clicks on the search result, they immediately get redirected to a different page that is not as relevant. There are legitimate uses of redirects when an old URL is taken down and you want to redirect users to a new URL with the same or similar content.


Gateway pages/sites:

Real secondary sites with real content are totally fine. But some SEO practitioners use duplicate content, plagiarized content or search engine driven text purely for the purpose of creating a backlink to the main site. It is fine to carve out a segment of your business to create a dedicated site and the ethical test of whether a customer feels the site is valuable and if there is openness about the relationship.


Backlink Spam:

Adding backlinks to your site with little regard for quality and relevance. True and legitimate backlinks are probably the most critical variable in a solid page rank. Many practitioners blast your site to get massive amounts of backlinks in a quick fashion. There are even scripts that can do this for very low cost. They exploit forums and blogs that allow for unregistered feedback and incorporate irrelevant commentary with a link back to your site. Search engines crack down on known backlink farms but new ones keep cropping up.

“Black Hat” Internet Marketing – Why So Prevalent?

A battle between search engines and those trying to game the system.

Technical tactics that most business don’t understand. A complete lack of transparency.

Lack of regulation and jurisdiction. Some service providers based overseas.

Easy to set up shop. Just get a gmail account and Paypal account and your in business.

Black hat techniques can be incredibly effective in the short term resulting in tremendous temptation.

The good news - a simple approach to SEO.

Simply create relevant content for site visitors. Don’t write for search engines. Write for YOUR customers. Your content will “organically” be relevant to customers. Ranking results will take longer to improve … but they will be

legitimate results without risk of being penalized by search engines.

While this sounds simple, many businesses don’t have the resources, expertise or get lost on where to start.

drugrehab.net

NAATP Code of EthicsMarketing

No financial rewards or substantive gifts are offered for patient referrals.

In no case should treatment providers make payment or compensation to individuals or organizations in exchange for patient referrals – neither in the form of direct payment, consulting contracts, large gifts, nor other forms of remuneration or compensation.


Treatment providers will not engage in deceptive or misleading advertising +/ or unduly predatory marketing.

Member organizations will provide information about the general location of their facility or facilities; the credentials of their staff; and the length of stay in their programs.

Member organizations will NOT engage in patient brokering, make false claims, nor deliberately mislead consumers.


Member organizations will not exploit their clients’ rights to privacy for the purpose of promoting their programs.

Patients’ identities may not be revealed by a treatment provider – neither in the form of photographic images, video images, media coverage, nor in marketing testimonials – at any time during the client’s engagement in treatment.

NAATP Code of EthicsGuiding Principals

• A “common sense” document that is evolving and dynamic • The ethics conversation as a process, not an event. • Create a forum for discussion and debate – i.e. leadership

versus enforcement?• Membership organization versus an accrediting agency

NAATP Code of EthicsComplaints & Enforcement

There is a comprehensive policy and procedure which has been forwarded to the NAATP Board for consideration at our quarterly meeting next month.

Complainant encouraged to resolve any complaint with the NAATP member directly using all available channels before contacting NAATP.

NAATP does not have licensing, certifying, accrediting, or policing authority; NAATP complaint remedies limited to NAATP membership.

NAATP Code of EthicsComplaints & Enforcement

The process includes transparent and proactive communication among all parties, includes a 30 day response period, and a variety of sanctions including:

Send a written warning letter to the member organization Require the member organization to develop and implement

a corrective action plan Suspension of membership Termination of membership

What We’re About…“ATMO was formed in response to intensifying concerns among addiction professionals that unethical marketing practices are increasingly threatening to misinform prospective clients and damage the credibility of the addiction treatment field.”

www.recoverymarketers.com

1. Jaywalker does not engage in any form of misleading or deceptive practices in its online marketing, public relations, advertising, or collateral promotional materials. Further, we will not participate as an advertiser on “funnel” websites, bogus treatment directory sites, or so-called “rehab reviews” which misrepresent their objectivity to users or readers.

4. We do not admit clients who are not clinically appropriate for our milieu. We recognize the limitations of our model of care and we consistently refer clients and families who are not appropriate to other programs.

9. At Jaywalker, marketing is fundamentally about providing exposure for our programs and services to families, professionals, and prospective clients. We strive to accurately convey the day-to-day activities of our treatment center. We do not contrive our brand, we reveal our community.

Jan. 25, 2015 “I have noted your interest in the ethics of addiction treatment. I applaud your concern. Our industry, which should be a shining example of compassion, is too often exhibiting less admirable qualities. I have attached a short review of the ethical problems I often see. Hopefully our collective voices will make a difference.” Michael Campbell, MS, APRCo-Founder & PresidentSt. Joseph Institute for Addiction

FRN Marketing Ethics

1. All websites are clearly marked as Foundations Recovery Network (FRN) in the “About” or “Contact” section and privacy policy.

2. Directory sites we own are created with information available in the public domain. We will quickly remove a company or link at the owner’s request. We will consider requests to add additional companies or listings.

3. If someone mistakenly calls our admissions center, we will gladly try to connect them with the center he or she intended to call.

6. We do not create false reviews or pretend to be alumni or staff of other treatment centers on forums or message boards. We value legitimate reviews of ours and other services.

7. We do not work with companies or centers that we find violate our code of ethics. We work with companies who abide by our standards and ethical values.

8. We do not bid in paid search for competitor trademarked names. We only bid for our own names.


4. We do not post negative comments or messages about our competitors on social media, review sites, web directories, business directories or local search sites. We emphasize positive communication via all of our social media properties.

5. We do not engage in malicious link-building. We focus on quality links.

11. We do not create fictitious physical locations on online maps to have more favorable local rankings in search. We only create locations online for our properties in their specific physical geographic locations.

12. We do not infringe on copyrighted materials, including videos and photos. We pay for the rights to any images or video we use.

13. We do not share personal contact information without permission. We seek permission to share personal contact information.


9. We do not steal content from other sources. We work to produce original, informative content.

10. We do not make fraudulent clicks on competitors’ paid search or display ads. We focus our efforts on getting legitimate clicks on our own ads.

“It purposely confuses consumers into believing they are reaching one facility when they are actually contacting another.”

Ethics – Next Steps…

• Stand for your Brand – ID and Notify• Check yourself – Talk ethics w your SEO & PPC vendor • Post your ethics on your website – [CARF/JCAHO/NAATP]• Attend NAATP Ethics Panel at Annual Conference in May, 2016

Presentation available - [email protected]

Ethics In the Internet AgeTips and Tools to Safeguard Your Program’s Reputation

Colorado Springs Symposium - Feb. 1, 2016

internet ethics in addiction treatment

Healthcare