Republican representative Libby Szabo of Arvada repeatedly asked if 1st Alliance addiction counselors would lose their licenses if they were indeed being unethical.
"Yes, that's true," said Joyce Smith, a counselor who owns a practice called Creative Treatment Options, "but someone would have to file a complaint. These people will not be filing complaints, because they don't know any better. These are first-time offenders who are frightened. They're vulnerable, so they won't complain."
Anthony Camera
Karen Moreau helped organize fellow treatment providers against RMOMS's plan to offer alcohol counseling.
Senator Suzanne Williams and Representative Brian DelGrosso sponsored a bill to prohibit private probation companies from treating offenders under their supervision.
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Several lawmakers pointed out that since RMOMS case managers don't determine the length or location of an offender's therapy, there's no way RMOMS could manipulate the system to make more money for 1st Alliance by sentencing drunk drivers to unnecessarily long treatment. Their argument was helped by Eric Philp, the director of the state Division of Probation Services. The probation division itself didn't take a position on the bill; neither did the Division of Behavioral Health. But Philp testified that he saw no conflict of interest in what Beeck was doing. Asked by Representative Spencer Swalm, a Centennial Republican, what problem he thought the bill was trying to address, Philp said, "I'm quite unsure of that."
Speaking with Westword, Philp compared Beeck's model to a big-box store. "People say Walmart shouldn't be able to have a health clinic right next to its pharmacy," he says, "but based on my experience, as long as there's a physical separation, there's no confusion about the role. If it's co-located but separated — this side of the building is treatment and this side is case management — then I think it's okay."
But one offender who testified at the behest of the treatment providers' group said she doesn't feel that way. "I am angry when I go see my probation [case manager] because I have to pay $50 for them to check up on me," said the client, a senior at the University of Colorado who was convicted of a DUI. "My therapy, I like to go to. So to keep them separated, I see, is very important."
She testified that the state probation officer who first evaluated her didn't give her a choice of where to go for treatment. "The state probation officer said, 'I'll have you go to RMOMS. It's the cheapest,'" she said. After attending one class there, she said, she decided to switch to a more expensive agency, which she likes much better. "The cheapest isn't always the best, in my opinion," she said.
The treatment providers were frustrated that the House committee members seemed fixated on the business aspects of the bill, but a handout that the alliance gave to lawmakers didn't help. Representative David Balmer, a Centennial Republican, was so incensed by it that he read part of it aloud at the hearing: "'Don't mistake business people for clinicians,'" he read. "'Businesspeople have long been accused and jailed for unscrupulous behaviors. The unscrupulous ones don't always get jailed or run out of business. Some of them just get richer.'
"I don't know who wrote that, but that is a horrible thing to say about anybody that is in the business of helping people with horrible situations in their lives," Balmer said.
Thormodsgaard tried to explain that though their language was crude, what the treatment providers meant was that substance-abuse therapy is not business as usual. "We are talking about someone's mental health," he testified. "And if we as a state have an interest in state-ordering this sort of treatment, we should make sure it's as efficacious as possible. And if there's any appearance of a conflict, it should be mitigated."
Most committee members were unconvinced. They killed the bill in an eleven-to-one vote. However, several lawmakers said the issue was an important one that hadn't been resolved. "I believe that the bill addresses the issue of the corruption of the therapeutic relationship," said Representative Max Tyler, a Lakewood Democrat. "However, I think the discussion today had almost nothing to do with that...so my 'no' on this bill today will be a way of absolutely encouraging and saying this is an issue we've got to solve. If DBH doesn't solve it, we need to come back at it another year."
Representative Jonathan Singer, a Longmont Democrat who also voted against the bill, made an even bolder statement. "If [the Division of] Behavioral Health is doing an insufficient job," he said, "I will be the first person next year to co-sponsor this bill if it doesn't pass this year. That's a promise."
So what has the Division of Behavioral Health done in the five months since the bill died? For one, it dismissed a grievance filed by the Treatment Providers Alliance of Colorado alleging that in granting Beeck a treatment license, the division "eroded the overall quality of care in DUI treatment." The grievance included a meticulous file of everything that happened since Beeck was granted his first provisional license in 2009, including the division's first denial letter and a copy of the settlement agreement.
"Our grievance, simply put, is that we believe that DBH has failed to address or prevent the ongoing conflict of interest," they wrote. "We have exhausted our remedies to cure this problem. Therefore, we file this formal grievance."
