These Companies Lure You Into Care With This One Weird Trick…
Not all healthcare advertisements are legal, but that doesn't stops companies from displaying them.
I’m a grump. A real goddamn curmudgeon. Do you know how I can tell? Because I find myself saying things regularly to myself, sometimes with nobody else around. And those things include comments about compliance.
“Can you believe healthcare founders these days? It’s as if they don’t care about complying with all relevant regulations!”
That’s a joke. But it’s not that much of a joke. I say things pretty close to that. I love compliance. I like following the rules. I like the rules, especially when they protect patients. I’m a doctor. I care about patients. I care about protecting investors, also. But I really, really care about protecting patients.
What follows is exclusive content for only top tier exclusives subscribers…sorry not sorry.
Do you know who seems not to care about those things? The companies I’m about to 💩 post, and their… choices for leadership positions:
Wait, isn't that guy on bling empire? Yes, that guy is on on Bling Empire, New York. Never mind Chairman Mao was a nightmare dictator…moving on.
I have a religious zeal about compliance. It’s worth noting that I’m an ordained reverend. Yes, that’s true. I’ve been a reverend for over nine years.
Although I’m officially ordained through the universal life church, and I got it just so I could officiate a marriage, I consider myself a member of the church of latter-day regulatory compliance issues. I believe you can say something about a person and the rules they follow. Some laws are just; some are not. But even if they are complicated, there is a certain quality about people who casually avoid following rules and regulations around the care of patients. I find that unsettling. It is a marker for a relaxed attitude towards standards, not just boring ones.
Like, I recently listened to an excellent Bad Bets podcast. Sruthi Pinnamenani produces it, so, of course, it’s awesome.
But it’s not the Reply-All-Alumni-producers that excited me, even if the editorial consultation from fellow Sub-stacker
was thrilling…It was the ads! I found myself fantasizing about getting to write articles for publications like Compliance Week!
Yes, that’s an actual publication. (Psst, Call me…)
The issue I’m highlighting today is compliance with the law surrounding advertising for medical practices. This is a state-by-state issue in the United States. The states issue medical licenses, and as much as I disagree with this as a way to handle medical licensure in 2023, it is the law. As a result, physicians are allowed to do unbelievable stuff. Medical care, in any other context, would be assault or torture.
Only some of those laws are about what substances you can prescribe or how to prescribe it. Other laws relate to what you can say and how you can say it. They aren’t less important. Patients are vulnerable. It’s one thing to con investors into wasting their money on your dumb company cum criminal enterprise. As I have covered previously, you must be an accredited investor to make incredibly foolish investments in early-stage companies.
There are laws around how medical care can advertise itself. When these rules aren’t here, we get hurt:
To be clear, this is not civil law. It’s not that you have broken a contract if you do it. Laws regulating the practice of medicine, particularly when it comes to investors or non-physician owners or decision makers in medical practices—we are, for this is the corporate practice of medicine.
These are laws that are part of the criminal code. So, this is a huge deal. And yet, the regulation and enforcement around these laws are pretty loose. So, what I’m doing here, the reporting I’m doing in this sub stack is reporting on a crime scene, Should the authorities ever enforce it.
You may not see me stepping over bodies in the ground, but it could be equally severe. People are vulnerable.
I didn’t have to break into the Watergate hotel, and I didn’t have to scope around the back of somebody’s medical practice to find some piece of evidence that things were going south. These are crimes that have been documented on the Internet. All I had to do was open Instagram, Facebook, or whatever, and the evidence of an actual crime was right in front of me. What follows names the names of companies that committed these crimes. I can only hope that something happens by calling attention to this, but it probably won't.
Testify!
So, at least, for today, I am the good Reverend O. Scott Muir, M.D., but I am also advocating like an old-school citizen’s arrest to see an end to this kind of nonsense.
Let’s take a look at the laws in the state of New York, in which I practice.
I included some screenshots below for you to review, straight from the nys.gov website.
Here are the applicable statutes!
I know, it’s like the least sexy image gallery of all time. But if I’m going to be saying this stuff, you probably want to check my sources. It’s incendiary. I am aware of that.
Would you happen to know what else is incendiary? What healthcare companies do with their investors’ money when they advertise violating the law. By incendiary, I mean that they’re setting the money on fire. It’s worth noting that I have no financial interest in any of these companies. Although this is a little bit Hindenburg Report Junior, I’m not shorting-selling any of the things I’m writing about here at the time of this writing. Most of them are not public companies anyway.
Exhibit One:
This ad implies that it is quoting a patient testimonial. I’m not sure if that is what is happening. However, the ad also makes a claim that could fall afoul:
Advertising or soliciting not in the public interest shall include, but not be limited to, advertising or soliciting that:
Is false, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, sensational, or flamboyant
That could be interpreted as “sensational.” However, the burden of proof for the practice providing the medical care to defend that claim is not sensational but is on the practice itself.
Exhibit Two:
The data is acceptable (if true) but the quotes in nys are not Testimonials are verboten.
Exhibit Three:
Does it seem like being relaxed about controlled substances like ketamine has a high correlation with being willing to disregard the law?
Using patient testimonials is against the law in the state of New York. That's where I live. That's where these things are advertised to me. It's literally criminal to do so: patients are vulnerable. We used to sell literal placebo as medicine. We put a stop to that. Until then, gentlemen like this are making decisions to use misleading testimonials for their advertisements:
To quote Hudson Mind Chief Growth Officer Richard Chang: “it’s been a roller coaster.”
I bet…especially when this happens:
And this is still up on their Instagram afterward:
And so is this:
Which is a crime. Not a civil matter. It is removing any plausible deniability about not only this law:
Advertising or soliciting not in the public interest shall include, but not be limited to, advertising or soliciting that:
Is false, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, sensational, or flamboyant
But also, this…screenshot 7/13/23…after being sued for the above?
I just can’t.
In all fairness, they are not alone…
No comment.
—Owen Scott Muir, M.D.