Name: Rehab Scams Are on the Rise. This is What They Look Like.
Uploaded: 2025-08-19T23:45:00.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rehab Scams Are on the Rise. This is What They Look Like.' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Rehab Scams Are on the Rise. This is What They Look Like.' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-19. Transcript available.

you have an episode in traffic this season about uh about rehab scams yeah how
did how do you get
into that and what did you learn yeah you know i've been covering the opiate
crisis for a long
time and drug the drug business um as well and and just seeing um you know
talking to people
that have gone to rehab as well and lots of times i heard horror stories and so
this season we
decided to really try to investigate what was happening and we started our
reporting in um in
arizona where basically there are all these sort of rehab clinics that are
there to exploit native
americans mainly native americans because i know it's really horrible um native
americans get access
to health care easier much easier than the non-native americans in the state um
it was
something that started during covid where you can just basically call the
health department and say
you know this is my name this is my native american id number and they will
give you insurance like just
like that it was to make it easier for them but what that has ha what has
happened because of it
is that now they are seen as targets as um you know prizes for these black
market rehab operators that
set up these clinics they basically go to reservations it's insane they go
around these reservations
telling um convincing people that have problems with drugs or alcohol um to
come into to try to come
into their vans it's these white vans and so it's a little crisp i've heard
about the right vans for
many years and you always think it's sort of a myth right but it turns out that
actually in arizona it's
not a myth so well it's a very rehab thing to the white van like usually if
there's a detox center or
if there's a halfway house they usually come in a white van so it's very
typical to see that in that
community so that's exactly it so they go in these white vans they convince
people sometimes they tell
them we're just going to go for a ride this is what i heard but the majority of
times they tell them
look we're going to offer you free treatment free housing free food just come
with us and then they
place them in these houses but they don't act they offer them free housing but
they don't actually
offer them any treatment or if they do it's treatment and they're charging
insurance insane amounts of
money for bogus treatment and a lot of times these are desperate people that
really do need that
treatment and instead you know they're being lied to and exploited and just
horrible horrible conditions
the state i think it was three billion dollars or something don't quote me
because i can't remember
exactly but it was billions of dollars that the state of arizona lost to these
rehab scams in the
last few years alone why would they why would they the people stay there i
guess would be my question
because they had a lot of times they were actually given drugs and this is
happening after arizona we came to
california as well where they're exploiting not only native americans but
anyone people
from all walks of life and they're actually going to states like alaska and oklahoma
all around the
country and bringing people to these rehab scams facilities in california this
is where multiple
state sources and news outlets have reported that the cost of fraudulent
billing and scams involving
rehab and sober living facilities has totaled approximately 2.8 billion for the
state of arizona that's
unbelievable yeah that's 2.8 yeah the scams primarily exploited loopholes in arizona
medicaid system
especially the american indian health program billing for services that were
often never provided or for
patients who were not even in the facilities were the patients also part of the
scam so a lot of times
they're actually given alcohol and drugs to stay there or a lot of times these
are people who you know
whose families they've suffered from addiction the families might not want them
or you know they
don't have means to go back and they decide to stay because here they have a
free house free meals
and sometimes even free drugs and alcohol so they stay but what they don't know
or what they you
know what is happening behind that sometimes they don't know is that they are
being they're sort of
a prize they're they're being exploited and they're making millions of dollars
off the fact of having
them in these facilities and this is happening again in california as well did
you find out who are the
solicitors of this yeah solicitors the right word yeah or the owners of these
yeah who's the proprietors
of this yeah we did we actually interviewed i mean in in arizona when they
figured out that the state
started cracking down on these rehab facilities they closed hundreds and
hundreds of these clinics that
they realized were pure medicaid scams and uh and a few of them were still
operating one which was sort
of the bad one that we kept on hearing about was still operating so we showed
up at a ramada in like
a decommissioned ramada and oh yeah been there yeah decommissioned and where
hundreds of people were
being held or not held but they were housed and uh we were told that that per
that place the arizona
the government department of health of arizona had told them had sent them a
cease and desist and i
told them they should not they could not operate because they were running a
scam a medicaid scam and
meanwhile a few months later we show up and we're outside with our cameras in
hiding in our our own vans
and we see van white van after white van in the front with people being taken
into the vans and
then being driven to this treatment center where then that afternoon i was able
to talk to somebody
who went into the treatment center i just i saw that a bunch of people were
leaving the motel and i just
went up to one started talking to him and he said yeah i mean it was hundreds
of people inside this
sort of classroom and no one is actually getting treatment but they're charging
you know sometimes up to
like ten thousand dollars a person for treatment that they are not receiving
and they desperately need
and that ten thousand dollars goes straight into the pockets of these uh of
these owners ceo of tempe
rehab absolutely denies allegations of medical fraud right so this is a place
that this these are this
is the one that was running the the the facility from that decommission these
are accusations i want to
let you know that's allegedly we finally caught up with new final hopes owner
to see what he had to say
well at the arizona office of administrative hearings we interviewed him dennis
artillas and he denied
that his uh operate his facility was operating the day that we saw all those vans
full of people
taking people we had recorded evidence of this and he denied it okay so we did
not that it was that it
was operating that it was operating you're saying you have evidence that it was
operating that's right
i mean we saw it we filmed it yeah that's uh an amazing denies artillas yeah he's
latino or no
it's latino maybe i can't remember exactly i know that we spoke to his sister-in-law
who was working
she was the one responsible for the billing in his company and she basically
became a whistleblower and
told us everything how he was double billing for people how he was building for
people that weren't
even there so he's getting that he was making 850 million dollars or his
company facility 850 million
dollars a month she showed us the billing that's disgusting show up another
picture of him you can't
it's the only photo of him you can get yeah he's quite he doesn't like the limelight
of course he
doesn't that's why i want to make sure we get a good one of them because the
problem with is a lot of
criminals they don't get ever get shown and so people don't know who they are
we have a guy who
allegedly stole a bunch of money from us a few years ago what was that guy's
name
colin thompson colin thompson i'm going to put a picture of him up right now
just to remind everybody
that he's never uh what did he do he um got paid from advertisers and never
paid uh our podcast and
others oh no there he is right there well missing defrauded of that i know of
of me and my friends
was up to like four million dollars no way what is he doing right now do you
know i'm not sure
but wow i'm glad that i don't have to be involved with him anymore and did you
know him personally
yeah i thought we i thought i did i thought i did but he just uh he was
according to me and this is
just allegedly the guy was a complete thief piece of but i just heard i'm not
saying i heard i'm the only
reason i know that is because i said it i'm not saying anybody else has ever
said that wow hiding his
picture from the internet so you know he must have himself scrubbed off the
internet just zoom in on
his face a little bit i just want to get a gander at him there's a video too
there is being interviewed yep