An unlicensed drug rehab center puts patients and residents in danger when they provide care it isn’t legally allowed to offer.

In some cases, an unlicensed rehab facility promises 24/7 monitoring to families it’s not staffed to offer. A sober living house might also provide unsafe treatment that it’s not licensed to administer, putting patients at risk of serious harm.

Families who lose a loved one to an overdose in such a facility can seek justice and also earn full wrongful death support.

Licensed and Unlicensed California Drug Treatment Centers

Licensed

Drug rehab facilities that offer a certain level of care must earn and maintain a California Department of Health Care Services DHCS license. These services can include providing medical supervision, detox treatment, and professional counseling. The level of certification depends on the treatment provided and the type of patients treated.

A lower-level care facility may be one where patients don’t reside or doesn’t offer 24/7 medical supervision. These places will require less state licensing.

Unfortunately, even licensed facilities can accidentally or intentionally provide care they aren’t qualified to give to patients. They may do this to try to profit from additional patients. It may be the result of a poorly trained staff.

You can visit our page on how to look up licensed facilities and also see any violations a clinic has been hit with.

Sober Living Homes

There are also places like “Sober Living Homes” and “Drug-Free Housing” where people with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) live together. These homes offer peer support and often a house manager to help keep residents off drugs.

These residences often operate as a business and provide an important transitional step for patients just out of a drug rehab facility. However, Sober Living Homes that only offer peer support don’t need licensing from the state.

These guidelines are in place for the safety of extremely vulnerable patients. When facilities or group homes exceed what they are allowed to do, they put patients at risk of discouraging setbacks, devastating injuries, and fatal overdoses.

See: The difference between a rehab center and a sober living home.

How Unlicensed Facilities Can Allow Overdoses

Lower-level rehab facilities, such as outpatient care, provide important support for SUD patients. Sober Living Homes offer a strong environment for patients seeking to get back to a normal life.

Unfortunately, careless or untrained staff, or no trained staff at all, can create a place where residents can relapse and a dangerous overdose can occur.

These are just some of the types of negligence at an unlicensed facility or home that can lead to a tragic fatal overdose:

• A lack of security to keep drugs off the premises
• A lack of medical staffing to assess a patient’s condition and needs
• A lack of trained and qualified staff
• A lack of monitoring of residents to prevent drug use and overdose
• A lack of surveillance to spot the signs of an overdose and react
• A failure to respond to an overdose correctly (e.g., calling 911 immediately, providing rescue breathing)
• A failure to administer or lack of access to medication to help patients, such as NARCAN for fentanyl overdose
• A failure to contact family members

Evidence of these and other acts of negligence can be used to file a strong wrongful death claim.

Grieving families can never replace a precious loved one, but careless facility owners and operators should be held responsible for a preventable death. They can be asked to provide support for the family’s emotional trauma, their funeral and hospital bills, and the income that the deceased may have supported them with.

Contact Us if your Loved One Died at an Unlicensed Drug Rehab Facility.

Families who can prove a Sober Living Home’s negligence caused a loved one’s fatal overdose can demand full support.

Attorney Martin Gasparian can help hold negligent owners accountable.

He can also help families seek justice, even if the facility to blame is now shut down.

Mr. Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to all family members. There’s no obligation. And not every family needs a lawyer to file a claim. But if you need our help to earn more, you don’t have to worry about how you’ll pay a lawyer. We don’t get paid unless we win your family’s case. Then our fee comes out of the settlement that a rehab business must provide.