Finding a Rehab Facility Shouldn’t Be...

Finding a Rehab Facility Shouldn't Be This Hard

In 2016 and 2017, Max Jaffe's younger sister received a series of Facebook messages from a guy she'd met during her roughly 12 years as a drug addict."Yo if you know anyone that needs detox or residential im getting 3300 per client willing to split however u think fair," read one. "I'd honestly even put you on a clean check fraud hustle and get you 2K tomorrow," read another. Accompanying these messages were photos of drugs-including a 23-gram block of cocaine-and money, including a fan of $100 bills.

The guy was a patient broker, Jaffe says, paid by rehab facilities to help bring in patients. He certainly didn't care if Jaffe's sister-or any other addicts she might know-ever got clean. Watching the broker prey on his sister infuriated Jaffe, but he also knew it wasn't the only obstacle she faced. He'd managed to rescue her from a crack house in Santa Monica, Calif., a year earlier, only to struggle finding a local, reputable rehab facility that was qualified to treat her addiction and her depression, accepted her obscure insurance plan, and didn't have a monthslong waiting list. He enlisted his best friend, Stephen Estes, to help. "There are tens of thousands of treatment centers in the country, and two savvy guys couldn't find a single one to help us when we needed it," Estes says.

In March 2018, the friends launched WeRecover, a search engine aimed at simplifying the labyrinthine process of getting addicts into qualified treatment facilities-and dismantling the broker system in the process. Read rest here.