Promised rehab, left stranded in California

Yolanda and Dustin traveled 1,400 miles from Oklahoma to southern California in the back  of a Chevy truck in the spring of 2024, hoping to overcome their addiction to fentanyl. A friend told the couple about a treatment program offering housing and new clothes. Instead, they say, they received limited care and eventually had to pay their own way home.

Their experience reflects a broader problem, according to an investigation by The Frontier and the Curbside Chronicle, two nonprofit news outlets in Oklahoma: A growing number of California drug rehabilitation programs are using recruiters known as “body brokers” to lure people from Oklahoma with the promise of comprehensive treatment. Some patients described receiving inadequate care, suffering relapses, and being left stranded after insurers accused treatment providers and recruiters of fraudulently enrolling patients and submitting inflated claims.

Federal law prohibits financial inducements in exchange for referrals to addiction treatment facilities with penalties of up to 10 years in prison and $200,000 in fines. California law also prohibits treatment facilities from giving or receiving kickbacks  for patient referrals. 

The couple spent about a week at Integrity Recovery Center, a detox facility in a mansion in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles getting treatment that Yolanda said consisted largely of medication and occasional staff check-ins. They “sat around and watched TV,” she said.

The couple later bounced among outpatient providers and sober living homes, doing group therapy sessions over Zoom, and getting care of varying quality. After another detox stay in July 2024, they decided to return to Oklahoma.

According to the Frontier, Insurance records show that the couple’s insurance was billed $440,000 for their treatment in California, with Integrity accounting for over 75% of the claims. Integrity and other providers ultimately received $72,000, leaving thousands of dollars in deductibles and other costs which the couple said they weren’t asked to pay. Under federal and California law, it’s illegal for providers to promise in advance to waive patients’ out-of-pocket costs to recruit them into treatment.

Yolanda said she expected the program to help arrange transportation home, but staff declined. The couple waited for Dustin’s monthly disability payment and bought bus tickets back to Oklahoma City.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma sued dozens of providers, including Integrity, in federal court in August, alleging the defendants fraudulently enrolled patients in insurance plans and submitted inflated or fake claims to cash in on more than $20 million in payments.

Back in Oklahoma City, nearly two years after the ordeal, Yolanda said she no longer uses fentanyl, but she and Dustin still lack permanent housing while trying to remain sober.

“I knew this all had something to do with money,” Yolanda said. “I don’t know if I convinced myself, or if I allowed myself to be convinced, that they actually cared about people, too.”

Secret shopper survey finds therapists listed in insurer networks are often phantoms

A new study brings alarming clarity to a problem thousands of people complain about: that they can’t find a therapist when they need one – even though they have health insurance and the on-line directories of their insurance companies claim to have plenty of available clinicians.

Trained callers working with a team of Ohio State University researchers combed through those directories and made calls posing as relatives of people seeking appointments for non-emergency mental health conditions.

More than three-quarters of their attempts to schedule appointments failed – because phone numbers were out of order, calls went unanswered or clinicians were unavailable. In the end, only about 12% of more than 5,800 calls to psychiatrists and psychologists listed in the online directories of major commercial insurers in five states resulted in an appointment with a clinician. The results of the study were published in the JAMA Health Forum. 

“The big takeaway is that coverage does not equal access,” said Simon F. Haeder, the study’s lead author, in an email. “We looked at the largest, most resourced, and probably most reputable carriers in these states. Other carriers are likely worse.”

See the full story here.

Minneapolis mental health crisis response faces uncertainty

In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder in 2020 and other police killings of people experiencing mental health crises, Minneapolis became an early adopter of a new approach to crisis management by launching a program that sends unarmed mental health professionals to assist people in the midst of such a crisis.

Today, however, that effort is facing an uncertain future. Since 2021, the city has been contracting with Minneapolis-based Canopy Roots LLC to operate a behavioral crisis response team that has diverted an average of 10,000 calls annually from police, according to the Minneapolis Star. The city has spent more than $25 million on the initiative over five years.​

But city auditors have found that inadequate documentation and financial controls made it difficult to verify expenses, and the city lacked performance targets to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. ​

Mayor Jacob Frey and his staff recommended ending Canopy’s contract and instead awarding a $5.9 million contract to  Community Bridges Inc., an Arizona-based provider. But the City Council voted 7-5 to reject the proposal and allow Canopy Roots to continue operating the program for up to 18 months.​

On October 22, Frey vetoed the council’s decision. The debate now heads back to the council.

In other news:

As Ebola virus spreads across eastern Congo, families are grappling with grief, fear and social isolation, adding to the psychological toll of an outbreak that has killed thousands. A 34-year-old schoolteacher sought mental health treatment after the virus killed her brother and sister-in-law  in July and infected  three other relatives who  survived. The teacher, who requested anonymity in an interview with  the Associated Press for fear of stigma, said neighbors avoided her family during the illness.​

“It felt as though we were living all alone because of the illness,” she said. ​The teacher was among 350 people seen at the Samelo mental health facility in Bunia as the Ebola outbreak sparked a surge in need. “Grief, fear of infection, social isolation and a succession of deaths can leave families and communities lastingly vulnerable,” said head nurse Anicet Katembo Vyaluva.

​The teacher has since left the clinic but continues to receive follow-up care. Despite feeling better, she said fear persists in her community as residents wonder when the outbreak will end.

The Ebola outbreak has killed at least 4,600 of the 9,600 people infected. There’s no approved vaccine or drug for the virus, and the World Health Organization says efforts to contain the spread of Congo’s 17th outbreak are struggling.​

Health workers say decades of armed conflict, displacement and malnutrition in the region have made the psychological consequences of the virus even worse. Fear and misconceptions about Ebola can also lead to discrimination against patients and their families.

Americans are getting used to living with chronic stress. Nearly 8 in 10 adults say the cost of living is a significant source of stress, while many are withdrawing from social activities and turning to AI  for emotional support, according to the American Psychological Association’s  2026 Stress in America report, released Oct. 22.  It found over 77% of adults identified everyday expenses, including housing, groceries, and child care, as a major stressor. Concerns about the future of the nation and the economy ranked nearly as high.

The findings suggest that many Americans are getting used to coping with chronic stress; nearly three-quarters of respondents said stress was simply something they had to live with.​

Nearly half of adults said they had pulled back from at least one form of social participation over the past year because of stress, uncertainty, or feeling overwhelmed.  Some people are turning to artificial intelligence with 70%  reporting intentional  use of AI, up from 62% in 2025. Roughly half of those users said they had talked to AI as a friend or in a role similar to a mental health professional.

The bottom line: Becoming accustomed to chronic stress does not mean people are coping with it in a healthy way.