Problem

Today, big money in the drug treatment industry comes through failure. Together, the ACA and Mental Health Parity Act ensure that drug addiction relapse is always covered as an essential health benefit, and that children remain on their parents’ policies until age 26 and cannot be excluded due to a pre-existing condition. This has provided a financial incentive for corrupt private providers to keep the patient in an endless cycle of rehab.

Solution

I propose to extend Medicare’s outcome-based reimbursement model to the world of private insurance payments for drug rehabilitation. Devising a formula similar to Medicare’s that financially favors the good providers could reward the best recovery centers while shuttering rogue operators. This solution will help clean up the fraud and abuse in the treatment industry, which in turn will save lives from drug overdoses.