In Indiana Jones and
the Last Crusade, the evil antagonist, Walter Donovan followed Indiana Jones
into the chamber containing the "Holy Grail," the chalice from which
Christ drank at the Last Supper. The Grail was guarded by a Knight of the
Last Crusade. Donovan demanded that the Knight reveal which was the true Grail,
the one that could give eternal life. Instead, the Knight said, "You
must choose. But choose wisely, for as the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you." Donovan allowed his evil cohort
to choose for him and she selected a bejeweled, golden chalice.
He drank deeply …
waited for a few seconds … and then was wracked with excruciating pain. He rapidly aged,
disintegrated into dust and died. The Knight, with subtle eloquence merely
stated, “He chose poorly.”
In prior musings, we
speculated about the incredible harm which could be imposed upon the eating
disorder industry, let alone those suffering from eating disorders committed by
treatment centers owned by Wall Street private equity firms. It did not take
long to bring that speculation to reality.
On June 28, 2018,
CCMP d/b/a Eating Recovery Center purportedly produced a television advertisement on binge
eating disorders. Since this type of marketing does not directly involve the medical
aspect of operating ERC it stands to reason that CCMP and its
minions conceived of this campaign. The marketing campaign at issue emphasized and focused on weight loss as the main element in its binge eating disorder treatment protocol. This marketing was met with a firestorm of contempt
and justifiable derision.
A well-respected counselor
experienced with treating eating disorders stated, “Selling a focus on weight
loss to people in eating recovery is like selling a wine of the month club
subscriptions to alcoholics in recovery. This is so NOT ok. You are literally
prescribing the problem.”A parent advocate stated, “I’m shocked and extremely disappointed that they would put something out like this! Weight loss does NOT = recovery! This only contributes to the problem and encourages diet culture.”
Another parent advocate asked, “Why would they even advertise this? So upsetting! Not recovery oriented and definitely not long term recovery oriented at that.”
Another parent
advocate stated, “They do know better. They have been given the same feedback
again and again.”
Still another parent
advocate stated, “The clinical team has been trying to get the website fixed
for a long time and are completely ignored.”
Another advocate
remarked, “Didn’t we just talk to them about his a few months ago? Tone deaf!”
Another advocate
stated, “The fact that we have to worry about a place for recovery will prevent
healing from fat phobia and collude with weight stigma is outrageous!”
Still another parent
pointed out, ““… weight loss not guaranteed” in the fine print is horrifying
and sad.”
A person struggling
with her eating disorder said, “oh well … as someone with (mostly recovered)
anorexia, this is triggering as fuck.”
A person whose name
is well recognized in the eating disorder industry and who is in the industry
stated, “Why do experts in the field need to test this? Of course there is
appeal to the client population to draw them in with this tactic, however, it
is, simply put, wrong.”
Still another
advocate stated, “It’s because of money! Not about a person anymore in
treatment. Weight loss draws people.”
Another parent
advocate stated, “This infuriates me. It perpetuates EXACTLY WHAT IS WRONG IN
OUR SOCIETY IN REGARDS TO WEIGHT.”
Still another parent
stated, “Holy Moses, what moron marketing team doesn’t have meetings with the
clinic team as well. Something smells.”
Another advocate
stated, “This is absolutely horrifying! I have had concerns about ERC before in
the sense that they seem to be more business focused than client focused, but
this is the icing on the cake.”
This is just a small
sample of the outrage directed toward CCMP d/b/a ERC and its marketing
campaign. CCMP’s response, through various employees before its parent
authority reigned in those employees’ actual opinions included these remarks:
“As a dietician on the team, I am
reaching out to share my sadness and heartbreak. … I can promise you that our
team does not support this Ad. … We couldn’t be more heartbroken.”
“I had not seen this until this am [sic.] and am horrified. As you know this
is not who we are. The commercial is our chance to reach people and tell them
that dieting and weight loss are not the solutions to BED …”
The firestorm continued to rage unabated on
social media. Only then did ERC come out with its “official response.”
“I just wanted to let you know that the
above image is not an actual TV commercial. Unfortunately, this was a screen
shot from a video never meant for public use. ERC take [sic.] treating eating disorders very seriously, and work [sic.] hard at breaking the dieting
mentality and the body shame that accompanies it, for their clients.”
The response from eating disorder advocates, concerned parents and
patients was again, immediate and scathing. And understandably so. ERC’s first
attempted response was a mere deflection and left many unanswered questions.
This necessitated a more substantive mea
culpa from ERC as follows:
First of all, thank you for your
passionate responses over the last day. We’d like to explain and apologize for
any misperceptions generated by a screen shot from an exploratory video and
assure you that this is not and ad for Eating Recovery Center’s (ERC) Binge
Eating Treatment and Recovery (BETR) program.
First, we would like to provide some
background and context. ERC’s mission is to take the very best care of
patients, families and providers of care in the treatment of and recovery from
eating disorders and related conditions. To fulfill this mission, we must
connect prospective patients with the care they need. Early in the stages of
marketing and research efforts, it is common to make use of consumer and
patient panels made up of participants from relevant sectors to respond to
ideas and assist with messaging. To assist in marketing the BETR program, ERC
contracted with a third- party agency was asked a consumer research panel of
100 people to preview a rough cut of a video which portrayed several different
perspective and different messages. We did this to ensure that our messaging
for the treatment of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) was accurate, understood and
well received. This rough cut was offered to the consumer panel before showing
it to, and incorporating feedback from, our clinical experts.
Unfortunately, a screen shot of this draft
video was distributed on-line, out of context. Many unfortunate assumptions
have been made regarding the content after seeing such a small part of this
work.
We sincerely apologize for our mistake and the
part we played in allowing for such a post. We understand our role in the
understandably negative and emotional reaction. We are very sorry if we
unintentionally hurt the very people we are trying to reach out to and to help.
The treatment of BED involves providing
support in understanding and interrupting binge eating behaviors and treating
the medical and emotional consequences of these symptoms. We are committed to
providing our patients with BED with an expert multidisciplinary approach
including expert psychiatric and medical care, psychotherapy with seasoned and
compassionate therapists and individual nutritional planning that supports the
goals of a comprehensive treatment plan. We do aim for weight loss as a
treatment goal for our patients with BED. Rather, we target quality of life
improvements and improved psychiatric and psychosocial functioning. Our intent
in collecting feedback from the group of 100 consumer expert reviewers was with
this end in mind.
When we are ready to advertise the BETR
program on a broad scale, it will incorporate what we’ve learned from today’s
conversations, the feedback of the reviewers and our own clinical experts.
We very much appreciate the feedback received
today. Please don’t ever hesitate to share your experience and your wisdom with
us.
Susan McClanahan PhD, Chief Clinical Officer
Anne Marie O’Melia MS MD Chief Medical
Officer
Doug Weiss, MBA, Chief Marketing Officer
For any additional questions, please feel free to reach out directly to our leadership, please email Doug Weiss at: Doug.weiss@eatingrecovery.com
The replies to this attempted apology and explanation were
insightful. One person legitimately questioned how such a clueless marketing
angle even got past brainstorming, why this message was not off-limits to the
marketing company to begin with and why this message did not first go through
the clinical team. This advocate wisely pointed out, “Your repeated generic
response is not enough. Even having the audacity to “test” this ad with a
select audience is unethical and goes against every standard of treatment in
eating disorder recovery.”
Still another advocate replied to CCMP d/b/a ERC’s response as
follows: “This attempt to save face by claiming the ad was in its infancy is a
straw man defense. The fact that it was even piloted suggests that it was
considered as potentially viable.”
There are numerous other responses to CCMP d/b/a ERC’s attempted
marketing campaign and to a person, all are understandably scathing. This type of attempted marketing is
about forcing the strongest impact possible on the most vulnerable prospective
patients, increasing ERC’s patient population not for the sake of improving the
understanding and research into this insidious disease but to simply increase
the profit margin for the private equity firm which has a majority ownership in
ERC.
One must also question whether the marketing firm who composed
this campaign is the same entity that assured CCMP d/b/a ERC that it was
perfectly acceptable to boast on its website of a 99% satisfaction rate amongst
its patient population even though it has been illustrated that that number is
grossly inflated, inaccurate and in fact, was debunked by clear and convincing
evidence.
This ill-fated marketing campaign, and the false advertising on
CCMP d/b/a ERC’s website regarding its “success rate,” perfectly illustrate the
reasons supporting the rationality of the Corporate Practice of Medicine
Doctrine and why there is such a disconnect between Wall Street PE firms and
medical practices. One cannot dispute there is a direct correlation between the
most recent marketing campaign and the misrepresentations on its website and in
fact, both have the same motivation … that is, to bring in the greatest number
of patients so that CCMP d/b/a ERC can continue to grow its bottom line thereby
making it a more favorable target for the next acquisition.
One can also wonder whether it is mere coincidence that while a
marketing firm was working on that ill-fated campaign, CCMP d/b/a ERC announced
that it was expanding to a new location in Seattle, Washington, which in
addition to its existing Bellevue site, allowed them to “… expand our
residential, PHP and IOP levels of care to those in the greater Puget Sound
area.” Granted the drive from Seattle to Puget Sound is a grueling 30 miles but
on the other hand, those goals in the incentive based contract held by the
primary medical directors in ERC’s Denver corporate headquarters are not going
to be achieved by themselves!
If the primary motivation of a corporation is to rapidly expand
for the purpose of making it a more favorable target for reacquisition,
especially in an industry that is for the most part unregulated, which is
flying beneath the radar of politicians, and which has no third parties to
provide a system of checks and balances, then that corporation is emboldened to
make misrepresentations on its website and to market its services to vulnerable
persons whose health, if not very lives hang in the balance.
CCMP d/b/a ERC continues to provide examples of why state’s
attorney generals or state boards of medical examiners must pick up the mantle
of investigating bad faith conduct and to enforce the rule, if not the very
spirit of the Corporate Practice of Medicine doctrine.
And so, we await with great eagerness the next misstep taken by
the private equity overlords at ERC so with the subtle eloquence exhibited by
that Knight of the Last Crusade, we too can say, “They chose poorly.”
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