The DHCS licenses drug rehab facilities in the state of California. Drug treatment programs (especially residential detox centers) that offer a certain level of medical care or professional counseling must submit to inspections and earn a license.
Private organizations like CARF and Joint Commission (formerly known as JCAHO) offer accreditation that can lend trust and assurance to drug rehab businesses.
If a facility allows a patient to die, families can sometimes point to harmful services offered by a clinic that they weren’t licensed to provide. Families can also expose negligent rehabs that don’t provide the care they promised or are accredited for.
DHCS Licensing Is Different Than Accreditation
California’s Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is in charge of licensing California drug rehab facilities. This licensing is generally required for Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment programs that offer a certain level of care. Facilities that offer detox services must be licensed (often meaning that incidental medical services are involved).
Places like residential recovery homes where residents only receive lodging and peer support usually wouldn’t need licensing. This would include the many Sober Living Homes in California that aren’t allowed to offer medical care or formal counseling.
Accreditation from any organization like CARF is generally not mandatory. Health care providers pay to have one of these independent quality accreditation groups inspect their operation and provide a seal of approval.
This seal can be a selling point for treatment centers. Accreditation can be used to reassure families that a certain standard of care and supervision is met.
Rehab Accreditation from Joint Commission
California’s licensed and unlicensed rehab facilities can also choose to seek certification from an independent organization like Joint Commission International (JCI). The DHCS does not provide accreditation.
JCI inspects almost every type of healthcare provider, from hospitals to home care providers to ambulance services. Companies pay JCI to inspect their operations for safety and quality. JCI often interviews rehab clinic staff and patients, along with reviewing records as part of the process.
After a process over many months, JCI decides to accredit the organization or reject it, but inspectors can also suggest improvements to help businesses reach the proper level of service.
CARF Accreditation for California Drug Rehabs
The Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) generally focuses on rehabilitation and behavioral health services companies, including places offering SUD-specific services.
CARF is paid to inspect drug rehab facilities and confirm they meet certain strict healthcare standards. They also certify facilities as meeting American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) criteria. These criteria are also part of some DHCS licensing requirements.
What Do Accreditation Standards Mean If a Patient Dies
Accreditation isn’t a guarantee that when your loved one checks into a drug rehab, they will receive top-notch care and supervision.
Facilities can become negligent and fail in the services they were accredited for. When constant monitoring and a zero-drug environment are advertised, but then your loved one comes to harm, families can have an easier time securing evidence of negligence for a wrongful death case.
When your loved one is allowed to obtain drugs and overdose while going minutes or hours without being checked on, it points to an accredited facility failing in its duty to patients. It creates easily proven liability.
What’s more, many of these accreditation providers charge their clients a lot of money. This can create a conflict of interest in some situations. Leaving families wondering if all accreditation awards are equal.
A skilled California Rehab Facility Wrongful Death Lawyer helps families secure the evidence they need to file a wrongful death claim that facility owners will have a hard time dismissing.
Support Available from a Negligent Drug Treatment Center
All facilities owe patients a “duty of care” to keep them safe under the state’s premises liability laws. There’s also a “special relationship” created when operators take in very vulnerable patients (health care provider/patient relationship). It’s a heightened legal obligation requiring facilities to keep patients out of harm’s way.
This duty also applies in situations where a patient is allowed to harm themselves or to gain access to drugs and overdose. Because the facility is supposed to be in complete control of the patient and has made certain promises of a “safe environment,” facilities are found liable in most cases.
Families of the victims can file lawsuits and receive help with certain wrongful death hardships that usually follow the tragic death of a loved one:
- Support to pay all burial costs.
- Replacement of any weekly income from a job the victim had, but the family can no longer depend on.
- Support for the loss of love, guidance, and security a victim had always provided.
- Support for the loss of companionship parents must cope with after losing a child to an overdose in an adolescent rehab facility.
- Punitive damages to punish an extremely careless rehab facility for allowing an overdose (these are rarely issued, but the fines paid by the facility do go to the estate).
Support Through a Survival Action After an Overdose
A representative of the victim’s estate can also file a Survival Action and demand support for the victim’s hardships before dying (this money usually ends up going to the family) :
- Hospital bills and ambulance fees built up while the victim was still alive
- The paychecks a victim lost while still alive but unable to work
- Reimbursement for any property damage
Contact Us if Your Loved One Was Allowed to Die in a California Rehab
Families must remember that a loved one who dies while in the care of a rehab facility is not at fault.
To make sure family members don’t forfeit their right to support, Attorney Martin Gasparian offers a free, confidential consultation to all family members. It’s a no-risk, no-obligation way to find out what a wrongful death case would be worth and how to hold a negligent drug treatment program fully responsible.
Remember, there are no upfront costs to you and your family if you need to hire a lawyer. We aren’t paid unless we win your case for you. Then our fee comes out of the settlement check a negligent recovery business must write.