Why does CCH want to be reclassified as a FQHC? Soine Hash Program Director of CCH told the Portsmouth Daily Times (PDT) that one of the advantages of FQHC status is that it will give CCH "access to enhanced reimbursement for services provided." What the hell does "enhanced reimbursement" mean? If it's not clear what it means that's because it's a euphemism. A euphemism is a word or phrase used to cover up something unethical or illegal. For example if you form a business one of whose services is to provide drugs to drug addicts, then you call that service "counseling" and you call your drug addicted customers clients. Here's another example of a euphemism. If a hooker walks up and down John Street in a Salvation Army uniform she's a euphemism. What the euphemism "enhanced reimbursement" really means is that Ed Hughes will be able to squeeze even more money from the federal, state, and local governments for housing, transporting, treating, and coddling addicts with the result that he will become even wealthier than he already is.
I have written a letter to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a division of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, urging them to reject the CCH request for FQHC status. I believe Counseling Center, Inc., and its front companies, are partly responsible for Portsmouth being not just anecdotally but also statistically, one of the worst cities for drug-abuse in the country. Because it has attracted drug addicts from other counties in Ohio as well as from neighboring states since its establishment ten years ago, the Counseling Center, Inc., with its medicine-man promise of miracle cures, has made drug abuse in the Portsmouth area worse, not better
Before HRSA grants CCH FQHA status, it should require Counseling Center, Inc., to make public verifiable statistics to justify its claims to miraculous recovery rates. Recidivism is notoriously high among addicts. Are Hughes' "clients" exceptions to that rule? In 2013, the FBI indicted forty-four individuals in the southern Ohio area–including three counseling center owners in a health care fraud and distribution scheme. On September 25, 2014, local, state, and federal law enforcement officials raided two Portsmouth counseling centers owned by Paul Vernier, an Ed Hughes wannabe. What is Ed Hughes? What is Paul Vernier? A humanitarian or a hustler? A drug counselor or con-artist? In Portsmouth it's hard to tell the sweet talkers from the street walkers or the Salvation Army ladies from the shady ladies. Before it grants CCH the FQHA status, the HRSA better be sure it knows the difference.
