Oh dear…
Drugs, Death and Denial at a Rehab for the Rich: Clients are overdosing at the Red Door, a Hollywood-favored recovery center run by a husband and wife duo whose previous facility was shuttered in scandal: "How many people have to die before these people are stopped?" By Gary Baum via The Hollywood Reporter
Residential treatment programs licensed by California’s Department of Health Care Services are required to report the death of any client from any cause within one working day. Yet because the Red Door’s only certification with DHCS has been as an outpatient program (not a 24-hour residential treatment facility), registered to Fried’s Beverly Hills private practice address, DHCS was unaware of the fatalities.
According to DHCS, the Red Door submitted its application to be a licensed residential program at the property rented from screenwriter Black in September 2020, months after the woman’s deadly overdose; it’s still pending. DHCS has yet to receive an application for its Mulholland Drive location.
Staffers and clients who’ve worked at the Red Door’s residential addresses say both sites have operated beyond DHCS’ prescribed bounds for sober living homes, which don’t require licenses. (Durham notes that the Red Door, presenting itself to the family as a treatment environment, administered potentially addictive medications to Cooney on-site, including benzodiazepines, often prescribed short-term for anxiety and insomnia.) Agency spokeswoman Carol Sloan notes that it’s a violation of California regulations to provide drug recovery or treatment services in an unlicensed setting. “Until DHCS approves and issues a license, those services cannot be rendered” at a residential facility, she explains. When asked about administering medication on-site, the Red Door spokesperson says, “The Red Door is not a treatment center. It is a sober living facility.”
The Red Door’s critics find the regulatory oversight — or lack thereof — frustrating. Shohet and Fried’s history at One80 (previously licensed with the agency) wasn’t reviewed as part of even its outpatient certification process. Additionally, Fried’s then-probationary status as a therapist didn’t derail her from being allowed to serve as its clinical care director.
“The issue at the heart of this isn’t Berni and Alex; they are grifters and always have been since he was a drug dealer and she was his client,” says Suzanne Wallach, a marriage and family therapist specializing in dual-diagnosis addicts, who performed intern work under Fried at One80 and subsequently filed whistleblowing complaints to both DHCS and the Board of Behavioral Sciences in 2012. “What is most shocking is that the regulatory agencies that are in place to keep the consumer safe have done nothing over the past 10 years. These agencies, which are supposed to hold clinicians and treatment providers to high standards in order to keep patients safe, have miserably failed. How many people have to die before these people are stopped?”
And we expect companies and it’s employees to self report?!? Or, when they do, and nothinggggg is done, all it shows is there is no point. Scammers be scammin’, the bullies and the liars get ahead. I wish I was not so cynical, but here we are.
