Unscrupulous treatment centers have determined that they can make a lot of money off of a client who has good insurance, and they are sometimes willing to pay out money to outside people to bring clients into treatment so that they can bill insurance.

Who is paying for these “bodies”?  Typically, anyone who is involved in the referral process of a patient to a treatment center could be the one looking to get paid for the patient intake.

Source of this payment might be:

• The treatment center receiving the client.
• A marketing company or call-center who is looking to obtain clients to send to treatment centers (they play the middle-man).
• An interventionist who is getting a kickback from the treatment center being utilized.

Recipients of this payment might be:

• A freelance treatment placement individual who is looking to make money by placing people into treatment and getting kickbacks or commissions from the treatment center.
• A call center getting a percentage of the take on a client’s billing.
• An unscrupulous interventionist who takes fee for placement.
• Sometimes the client is offered money by the body broker to get them to attend treatment!

In what has been a gruesome and dangerous trend, the industry has even seen “poachers” who go to 12-step meetings and look for people to relapse and become patients.

Here is a great definition by the American College of Physicians.