Treatment Center Hearing Should Be Emotional and Confrontational

NO TIME TO DIE –

Dec. 11, 2021 – Others have long lists of questions for Michelle Baass, director of the California Department of Health Care Services, the agency charged with overseeing the industry.

How are death reports handled and in what time frame? Does the director ever personally read death reports? Do you know that former DHCS staffers have gone on to take jobs as consultants to treatment programs overseen by their erstwhile colleagues? … there were 61 death complaints and about 540 “jurisdictional complaint inquiries” to DHCS in the last fiscal year, said Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-NorrisPetrie-Norris, chair of the Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee that will hold the hearing at 11 a.m. Monday.

Deaths aren’t uncommon in the rehab industry, where lax regulation runs head-on with the high-stakes illness of addiction.

The agenda for the upcoming meeting has been finalized. In addition to Baass, panelists will include Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, who helped shape Costa Mesa’s successful sober living laws when she was the city’s mayor; Todd Franssen, Orange County District Attorney Investigator, who has been a main force behind the agency’s crackdown on some rehab centers; Dr. Mario San Bartolome Jr. of the California Society of Addiction Medicine, who can address the scientific approach to addiction treatment; and Jennifer Lohse, vice president and general counsel of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, who can discuss best practices.