Florida officials’ first-come, first-served system for dozens of new methadone-treatment licenses resulted in applicants camping out in tents with sleeping bags, coolers and, in one case, a gun, to be first in line.
Pictures of applicants lounging in chairs outside the Department of Children and Families headquarters in Tallahassee are among the documents filed by methadone-treatment providers in a challenge to an emergency rule that resulted in the type of activities usually associated with fans lining up for tickets to a concert or a major sporting event.
Instead, the people camped out were vying to be first in line as workers at the state agency unlocked the doors at 8 a.m. on Oct. 2, when the application period for the methadone-treatment licenses opened.
Three non-profit treatment providers who lost out on getting some of 49 new licenses are arguing, in an administrative challenge filed Dec. 11, that the Department of Children and Families wrongly created an emergency rule that is unfair to potential vendors and could leave poor drug addicts in the lurch. At least 16 other providers are expected to join the challenge.
Florida officials this summer decided to double the number of methadone clinics in the state as part of a $27 million federal grant aimed at curbing opioid addiction and overdoses.
Under an old rule, criteria used to pick the methadone medication-assisted treatment providers included the number of years applicants had been licensed to provide substance abuse services; the applicants’ “organizational capability” to provide treatment; and the providers’ history of noncompliance with the department’s rules.
In August, the Department of Children and Families issued an emergency rule aimed at expediting the new licenses. The new rule, finalized in September, gave providers the ability to submit applications for licenses on a “first-come, first-served” basis.
That prompted the campout in front of the agency’s headquarters.
Representatives of two of the treatment providers saw the line outside the agency when they went to check on the address the day before the application period opened, lawyers for Operation Par, Inc., DACCO Behavioral Health, Inc., and Aspire Health Partners, Inc., wrote in the 38-page petition.
“Some individuals had arrived days earlier and were camping outside the department offices in tents, with portable chairs, sleeping bags, and coolers stocked with provisions,” the lawyers wrote. “The applicants remained in line, and male applicants would leave only to urinate behind the building, but female applicants had no options for restroom facilities.”
At least one of the people in line was armed, “ostensibly to protect their spot in line,” according to the court filing.
Many of the people in line didn’t have applications with them, but the documents were delivered before 8 a.m. Monday, “and clean, well-rested persons took their place in line,” lawyers for the petitioners wrote.
State officials selected Colonial Management Group, L.P., to apply for 19 licenses. Psychological Addiction Services LLC was chosen to apply for 20 of the 49 licenses, and a third for-profit organization, Relax Mental Health, was selected to apply for eight licenses.
The Department of Children and Families notified the losing providers Nov. 16 that they had not received licenses.
“The number of applications for new providers in the county/ies you applied for exceeded the determined need,” the letter said. “Pursuant to the emergency rule, the selection of a provider was based on the order in which complete and responsive applications were received. Your application was not approved to apply for licensure.”
Department of Children and Families spokesman David Frady wouldn’t comment directly on the rule challenge, but said the agency “remains committed to ensuring an adequate service network for individuals in crisis and in need of substance abuse services.”
“Ensuring access to care is an essential element in fighting the opioid epidemic and helping families recover. DCF moved quickly to get help to people in parts of the state where medication assisted treatment is not currently available,” Frady said in an email.
Methadone medication-assisted treatment programs use a mix of methadone and behavioral therapy to treat opioid addiction.
But the service providers challenging the rules say the for-profit vendors don’t accept Medicaid or third-party payments, such as health insurance, raising questions about their effectiveness in combating the opioid scourge that prompted the emergency rule and caused Gov. Rick Scott to declare a public health emergency earlier this year.
By granting 96 percent of the new license slots to those companies, “the department has alienated indigent patients and failed to expand methadone medication-assisted treatment services effectively, despite the stated purpose of the rule,” wrote layers for the petitioners, who do accept such payments.
“In short, the process was not fair and equitable in its treatment of providers” and “failed to ensure that methadone medication-assisted treatment services would be expanded in a way that was capable of treating patients in need of critical services, no matter where they fall on the economic spectrum,” the lawyers argued.
In its justification of the rule, the Department of Children and Families decided that the new procedure was fair because “it ensures the equitable treatment of methadone medication-assisted treatment providers.”
But the petitioners asserted that the rule didn’t ensure “the equitable treatment of methadone medication-assisted treatment providers,” as the health department maintained.
“It simply guaranteed award to those people who decided to camp out at the department,” they argued.
The petitioners are asking Administrative Law Judge R. Bruce McKibben to declare the emergency rule invalid because there was no immediate threat to the public health, safety and welfare.
The lawyers argued that the emergency rule wasn’t needed because there was already a rule in place that allowed the department to do what Scott’s June 29 executive order declared was necessary: assess the need for additional medication-assisted licenses and additional providers.
The Scott administration maintained that the executive order was necessary to immediately draw down federal grant funds instead of waiting until the next fiscal year started on July 1.
But the department didn’t issue the emergency rule until Aug. 25, more than a month after the new fiscal year began, and didn’t follow its own existing rule requiring that a needs assessment be performed and published by June 30, lawyers for the losing treatment providers argued.
The effect of the emergency rule was to actually delay the issuance of licenses, according to the petitioners.
“It appears that this has been an ongoing issue for at least several years, but there is no reason why an immediate danger existed on August 25, 2017, such that an emergency rule was needed. The only new fact was that there was federal grant money available. But the fact that grant money was available does not create an emergency,” the lawyers wrote.
–Dara Kam, News Service of Florida
MS Auggie says
These people for the most part, could wean themselves off addictive pain meds, if, they want a softer easier way. Chipping their dosage down to 5 mg finally, then- none. Red Benticangi KRATOM, taken in capsules, or drunk in a bad tasting tea, is also a way to detox from pain medications. If they are on heroin, theres only Dr assisted detox. This… is a stupid way , to just – marry yourself to Methadone & appointments,, for life.
Mm patient says
Pethitic junkies!
jmb says
the only reason there in line is to make money they dont care about the patients
mary janes baby daddy says
so we double the methadone clinics but decide medical
marijuana is a waste of time? this is just ridiculous trash to scam and make money off of junkies rather than actually help amd rehabilitate them, the government the fda and the old crackpots againast medical marijuana are only in it for the money made off pills, heroin, fetanyl and all oter abused and addictive narcotics
MannyHM says
Run and administered properly, Methadone Maintenance Clinic is a time tested most effective treatment for opiate addiction – the craving is eliminated like that of a bone to a vicious barking dog, withdrawal is neutralized, and pain is controlled. That urge to get that next fix is gone. He doesn’t need to lie, to steal, burglarize, rob, sell oneself, or take heroin adulterated with lethal fentanyl and blood – borne HIV, AIDS, Hep B and C.
Anonymous says
We don’t need these clinics. They pass out methadone for $$ to addicts so they can substitute their addition from other drugs with this because it is cheaper. What a joke…this is not doing a thing to get people off drugs. How about opening some addiction treatment centers and mental health facilities to fix these people the right way. Who are the ones to benefit financially here??????? I knew you could figure it out.
Jamibad says
@ MS Auggie, so TRUE ! Kratom works !! If they seriously want to come off of any type of opiate they can wean themselves! Just as you stated! What methadone is doing is trading one drug for another, it doesn’t work! Sooner or later they have to come off the methadone, and it’ll be just as bad if not worse then the drug they currently use! What is it our law makers don’t get?? Oh, I forgot, they’re not Doctors! When politics interfere with our doctors, all you need to do is follow the “money” !