You would be marketing your addiction treatment center for a while now and it would be working well, but have you ever wondered if it’s ethical or not? Some believe that marketing is neither unethical or illegal. After all, what’s the harm in telling people about your business, right? Well, this is a common thought but as a rehab center owner, you need to be sure that you are doing it the right way, the “ethical way”.

You must have hired a marketing team to do the following:

• Design a website with appropriate SEO and messaging
• Perform outreach and networking jobs for your center
• Promote the brand using marketing channels and assets
• Run paid ad campaigns to raise awareness and generate leads
• Promote your center by attending conferences, arranging marketing booths and network
• Setting up referrals like unions, EAP groups, etc. 

All this is acceptable until you are working with legitimate people. However, there’s a faint line which separates ethical and unethical marketing for rehab centers. Some people pay a commission fee to the individuals for every patient they bring in. This will sound unethical, but what if you call it “fee-per-referral”? 

Sounds confusing? It will! As this is a gray area which needs clarification. 

Is Referral Fee Legal?

Apart from your patients, you will have other referrals like psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, MDs, etc. they would constantly be referring your rehab centers to their patients who need your help. Here’s how you can avoid unethical referrals: 

• Pre-qualify the rehab center you would partner with
• Only refer to facilities which are qualified to treat the specific needs of your patients
• Host and transfer your treatment center leads in the HIPAA complaint system 
• Don’t ever sell your leads, no matter how much money you get offered
• Never accept kickback for patients you refer

The laws of referring leads can vary from state to state, therefore, if you’re into referring leads, make sure you understand the legal ways to do so. 

Marketing Alternatives To Paid Ads 

Both Google and Facebook have stricter laws for rehab centers to market themselves on these platforms. To advertise your center here, you will need LegitScript certification and this can be an expensive and time-consuming process. Meanwhile, here’s how you can market your center: 

1. Use what’s already working

Use an organic approach to increase your viewers by implementing: 

• On-page SEO
• Organic link building
• Local marketing
• Blogging
• Asset development
• Content marketing
• Branding
• Email marketing
• Outreach and engagement 

2. Test other advertising platforms

You can advertise your rehab center on other platforms apart from Google and Facebook like:

• Yahoo
• YouTube
• Bing
• Twitter
• LinkedIn 

3. Get listed on the relevant site

Get your rehab center listed on trusted and genuine directory listings provided by other sites. 

The best way to save yourself from unethical marketing is by hiring a reputed marketing firm like Artgro Internet Marketing. We follow only the genuine means of marketing our client’s businesses. Contact us now to schedule a meeting.