Are Some Treatment Centers as Addicted as Their Patients?

Imagine the loved one of a patient enters your facility on the second day of treatment. They talk to the patient, then come back to you, yelling and screaming that, “He’s still addicted! It’s not working! I want my money back!”

Having been through this before, you calmly sit the family member down and explain that you can’t cure 10 years of addiction in two days. In fact, even 30 days is unlikely to have a serious effect, but that’s all that insurance is willing to cover, unfortunately.

In the field, we clearly understand that changing addictive behaviors is a difficult, time-intensive, and costly process. We’re well aware of some common behaviors and thinking patterns of those struggling with addiction:

• Desire for immediate gratification.
• Sacrifice long-term happiness for short-term highs.
• Trouble staying focused.
• Lack of motivation to put in the work required to change.
• They wait until the problem is very large before deciding to take action.

Yet, program owners and directors often don’t apply this same understanding to growing their businesses. When it comes to marketing and business growth, suddenly they’re the ones yelling and screaming that “it’s not working” two days into the newest effort or waiting for the newest hire to produce results.

It’s unlikely that a single person can break free from addiction after a mere 30 days of treatment. So it’s often baffling that so many owners expect to grow their businesses, that are far more complex than any single person, in 30 days or less (in fact, north of 80% of new businesses fail in the first 5 years, much less grow).

When we look at it this way, it seems that many treatment programs have the same mentality regarding their business as those in the program have regarding giving up alcohol and drug use.

Is the Investment Worth It?

If someone struggling with addiction came to you and asked, “Is your program worth $20,000?,” what’s your response? Probably something along the lines of, “Well, is $20,000 worth getting your life back, having a career, having good relationships, and being happy?”

Most people would answer yes to this question (whether they follow through with actions is another story :)). We have this expectation that individuals and families need to make the investment with professionals to achieve positive outcomes. After all, if they could have done it on their own, they already would have. Like many areas in life, we need expert partners to help us achieve results we can’t get on our own.

And, here’s the kicker: even after they complete treatment, someone in recovery is far from done. There is still a ton of work to be done reorganizing their life, regularly attending support groups, being conscious of their thoughts and actions, and putting in effort to achieve new goals.

Running programs, we all know this to be true. Yet, again, when it comes to building our businesses, many owners shy away from making the long-term investment needed.

Business growth isn’t achieved in 30 days. Just like successful recovery, it takes months and years of work to be successful. And, it takes constant vigilance. No program recommends 30 days of treatment, a couple follow-up meetings, and then they’re cured. Just like no real business is sustainable with a couple tweaks and 2 months of effort. The need for focus, vigilance, and strategic effort is constant.

I’ve actually talked to center owners who were dropping $10,000 a week on whatever fad they thought might work:  different marketing vendors, call buys, Adwords, Facebook, you name it, they were trying it. Can you imagine someone looking to get sober jumping into a different treatment center every week until they found one that cured them in 7 days? If you wouldn’t recommend that to someone in your program, why would you do it yourself?

Then, of course, you get the negotiators. Imagine a family coming to you and saying, “Well, we can only pay $2,000. Can we just do a couple days or maybe you can have one of your admissions reps do the counseling so we don’t have to pay licensed therapist rates?” That’d be silly, right?

Now, you could pay $2,000 a month and attend a long-term outpatient program. It might take longer, but you’d probably be able to achieve success eventually.

Marketing and business growth is no different. If the average cost per admit from multimedia channels is $5,000, spending $2,000 is not going to do anything for you with a direct response campaign. BUT, if you took $2,000 and put it into long-term brand equity and low-touch acquisition, it does work. It just takes a longer, sustained spend.

Acute Addiction and Programs in Distress

How many patients do you have in your program not at acute levels? Probably very few. The reality is that individuals and families often wait until it’s too late, the problem has become severe, before taking action. And that’s the most difficult stage of addiction to treat. They’re now probably looking at multiple rehab stints over the coming years. Had they addressed the problem early, it’d save them tens of thousands of dollars and years of suffering.

Investing in your business is no different. Here at Circle Social, the majority of calls we get are from programs in distress. They waited and waited to the point that they’d been losing money for 6 months to a year already. By the time they call, they don’t have the runway left to rebuild. The smart programs call us as they’re getting up and running, or when times are good. They make the investments when they have the cash flow to do so. This way, they build a moat of SEO, brand equity, and engaged audiences that other programs can’t even touch should competition move into their market.

In fact, to this day, our most successful campaigns are with our longest term clients who have been with us over 3 years. We invested when times were good, built up profitable campaigns, and sustained them. In December, when most centers were struggling with the normal seasonal downturn, guess which of our clients weren’t? That’s right, the same ones we’ve been working with long-term. As an example, for one behavioral health client in Washington, we still averaged 250 calls a day and 175 admissions a week for their outpatient programs across the state. For two other clients, we’re seeing Facebook admissions come in at $700 against spend for January.

Will They Put in the Work?

Recovery isn’t a magic bullet. You can’t go into a treatment center, sit in a chair and daydream all day, then come out cured. “It works if you work it.” Most programs repeat this mantra over and over to clients. As a patient, you have to work the program to get it to work for you.

Marketing and business development is the exact same. You can’t just pay someone and hope that they’ll build your business for you. It only works if you work it.

• Are you answering the phones quickly and appropriately?
• Are you supplying fresh content in terms of photos, alumni news, testimonials, etc.
• Are you retaining your staff (high turnover often means loss of training, BD leads, alumni relationships, etc.)
• Are you retaining patients?
• Are you in-network with most insurance or are you turning away/referring out more qualified inquiries than you take in?
• Are you preparing individuals and families for cash pay needs if insurance doesn’t cover everything or if extended care is needed?

As you often hear me talk about, good business that leads to growth is about finding the right partners. I think many people often assume this to mean that Circle Social acts as a partner for their program, which is true. But the other side of the coin is just as important. Are you acting as a partner with us? Collaboration is the key to success between companies.

What’s the Guarantee That It’ll Work?

You know the answer you tell potential patients: “The fact is, there isn’t one.” Why? Because at least 50% of the work has to be done by the patient. If they don’t do the work, there’s not a lot your clinical team can do for them most of the time.

There are also too many variables: Are they going back to a family and group of friends that uses regularly? Are they going back to their environment where there are tons of triggers? Do they have limited employment skills or career prospects that may make using again more likely? Are they coming out of 20 years of addiction versus just 2 years? Since you can’t control all these variables, you’re unwilling to guarantee an outcome or provide a refund if they relapse, right?

So why would investing in marketing be any different? Radio doesn’t give you your money back if the ads don’t produce calls. Did you invest enough? Did you choose the right time slots? Was your ad any good and targeted to the right people? Is it December, when nobody wants to get into treatment? Have you done a poor job of marketing in the past, so no one knows who you are and you have no brand to build upon? Do you have a ton of awful online reviews, so that when people research you after they hear the ad, they decide not to call? Do you have a confusing website or one that’s not mobile friendly? Does your call team not answer the phone or fail to build a relationship with callers?

All these factors contribute to the success of your radio, TV, Adwords, Facebook, BD, and whatever other marketing channel you’re running.

As I often tell clients, marketing ALWAYS works if you know what you’re doing. I can honestly say we’ve never run a campaign that was a total flop. At the very least, you’re building up audience recognition among a targeted group or geographic area. Now, whether or not a client invested long enough to optimize those campaigns and build up enough trust to move the audience from aware to engaged to active callers and admissions, or whether they appropriately answered the phone, or whether they have good online reviews is an entirely different story.

Getting Your Treatment Center into Recovery

In active addiction, most people are looking for immediate gratification, an analogy my friend Tony Faulker made to me recently that inspired this post. This mentality seems to have gotten carried over to the actual running of the programs where owners and directors look for immediate results, rather than realizing that recovery...I mean marketing and business growth, is a process.

And, as a process, you need experts to determine if incremental improvements are being made. Maybe the patient is less sullen today, they talk more in group, or they’re spending less time dealing with cravings. These are all small improvements that a clinician will recognize, but the lay observer would not. They are steps on the path to recovery.

When it comes to marketing, we look for ad lift, engagement, traffic to site, and time on page all as precursors to the ultimate goal of driving inquiries and admits. It’s a process that can’t be circumvented. Just like a patient can’t pay you $40,000 to rush through treatment in two weeks because taking the time to do the process right is more important than the pure mechanics, marketing and business growth can’t simply be rushed through with higher spends. The key is finding the balance of time, spend, and effort that maximizes returns, a mix that is different for every business just like treatment programs need to be tailored to the individual.

More Closures Coming

I predict another 20-30% of programs will close this year. I say this because most treatment centers I talk to are not adapting to the times. They’re waiting around for magic bullets or for things to somehow fix themselves. This isn’t going to happen.

“It works if you work it.” This is the mantra treatment centers need to live by. They need to think about their business like they think about their recovery - a journey requiring constant investment and work to be successful.

If you’re ready to put in the work, we'll get you the results you need. Give us a call at 800 396 9927.

Nick Jaworski is the owner of Circle Social Inc, a digital marketing agency that helps recovery centers and other healthcare organizations connect with patients and their communities to grow their census. He is also an advocate for a more human-centered, individualized and evidence-based approach to addiction treatment due to having gone through his own addiction issues as a youth. When he's not online, he can be found spending time with his favorite person in the whole world, his daughter.