The giant insurer accused the Southern California addiction treatment empire of “an egregious fraudulent scheme targeting vulnerable substance use disorder patients.”
The alleged healers, the company’s lawsuit claimed, paid “numerous body brokers to hunt down individuals needing (substance use disorder) treatment” and convinced them to enroll in their rehab programs “through kickbacks in the form of… cash and free living in homes that were little more than drug dens,” the Aetna Insurance charged in court documents filed more than two years ago against rehab operator Nathan Young and associates.
“(T)he Youngs then billed Aetna for ‘treatment’ that was either non-existent or substandard,” Aetna argued in the course of its $40 million action.
“If the members did not have a health benefits plan, the Youngs figured out a way to enroll them in one. All the while, the Youngs took actions to prolong treatment, avoid detection, and maximize the payments they received. Things have seemingly only gotten worse since Aetna filed this lawsuit.”
We’ve been reporting versions of this story for nearly a decade. And now, after more than two years of ferocious battle in federal court, both sides have reached a settlement and asked the judge to dismiss the case. That result disappoints some rehab industry reformers who wanted the case to go to trial, and see any evidence come out.
Attorneys for Aetna did not respond to requests for comment and Young’s attorney, Marc S. Williams, said only this: “The parties have reached an amicable resolution, and the terms are confidential.”
This doesn’t mean Young and co.’s troubles are over. The U.S. Department of Justice began a criminal probe last winter, commanding Aetna to share documents it has gathered in the course of its lawsuit. 
DOJ spokesperson Ciaran McEvoy declined comment on the status of that probe.
Young and co. also face a stack of wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits, many of which claim that drug and alcohol consumption were daily occurrences at Young-connected facilities that were supposed to be treating people for their addictions.
“California (finally) suspended the licenses of some of the Youngs’ facilities,” Aetna noted, perhaps with some irritation, in court documents.
Young and co. have denied any wrongdoing and Young has defended his work, saying he helps people on the lower rungs of society’s ladder stay sober, find jobs and reintegrate into society.
Aetna — and the grieving families — had a very different take.
“Lawsuits against the Youngs have proliferated across California from injured landlords, patients and ex-employees,” Aetna said in a pre-settlement filing. “And a veritable avalanche of public warnings about the Youngs have been raised from coast to coast. Delaware issued a ‘Scam Alert’ to warn potential (substance abuse) patients away from the Youngs’ preying eyes, while multiple media outlets have reported on the chaos Youngs’ scheme has wrought on California neighborhoods.
“Most concerning of all are reports of numerous patients dying on the Youngs’ watch.”
Attorney Karen Gold is representing plaintiffs in several wrongful death and personal injury suits involving Young-connected entities.
“These cases range from horrifying to abject tragedies,” said Gold. “The 15-year-old child of one of the victims was so depressed he hung himself. It never ends with the death of the person in treatment. You ruin this whole family forever. And for what? For money?”
‘Shocks the conscience’
Margaret Dickerson was recruited to Los Angeles from Illinois to enter detox at one of the facilities. She was given a plane ticket and arrived on Jan. 1, 2024, according to the wrongful death suit. Dickerson’s drug of choice was crack cocaine, but she was immediately prescribed the opioid-management drug Suboxone/Subutext “despite the fact that she did not have an opioid addiction,” the lawsuit said.
Workers also tried to sign her up for health insurance “and began attempting to submit billing upon arrival.” That didn’t pan out, however, and after about a week-and-a-half, Young and co. “abruptly terminated her treatment program, took her property and withdrawal medications from her, and threw her out onto the street,” the suit said.
However, by that time Dickerson had become dependent on the new opioid-management meds. And within three days of her eviction she suffered the first of three fentanyl overdoses. The last of those, the lawsuit said, was fatal.
Novita Faye Jarvis was a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe in Wyoming. She had a history of psychosis and self-harm in addition to substance use disorder, and was recruited to California as well, that suit said.
She was acting erratically the day before she died, but workers failed to call 911 or take her to a hospital to be evaluated for a psychiatric hold, it said. She had access to a knife and used it to cut her throat. Several witnesses said that workers spent hours cleaning up her bedroom before calling 911, all, according to the lawsuit, “in an attempt to cover-up their negligence and neglect in failing to prevent her tragic and preventable death.” She was taken by ambulance to UCI on July 13 and pronounced dead, leaving behind four minor children and two adult children.
Mason Teck had been sober for at least 30 days when, nearly three years ago, he was brokered into an unlicensed, Young-related facility in Fountain Valley, said another suit. He was “manic, overly talkative, restless and exhibited other signs of drug seeking behavior and impending relapse,” but workers failed to take any reasonable protective steps. He was allowed to leave, unsupervised several times, returning for the last time after 1 a.m. on Oct. 24, 2023.
He was not searched for drugs or paraphernalia, the suit said. No one saw him the whole day, and most of the day after. When he still had not emerged, a friend went to the facility and found him dead inside his bathroom from a fentanyl overdose. He had been dead for more than 24 hours, the suit said.
Young and his operatives told Teck that their purpose was to treat his substance use disorder and help him obtain sobriety and achieve long term recovery. But, according to the lawsuit, their real plan was “to inject decedent into a body brokering racket under the care and custody of a group of unqualified tortfeasors who wanted and/or allowed (his) relapse, so that he could start the insurance billing cycle from square one. Their conduct, the lawsuit added, was “fraudulent, malicious, reckless and shocks the conscience.”
Benjamin Barragan was a member of the Spirit Lake tribe in North Dakota who came to Los Angeles seeking sobriety and died in a Young-related sober facility. Emmanuel Mitchell came from Oklahoma and, similarly, died from an overdose in his bathroom.
Gold, the attorney for many of these families, has partial settlements with the doctor providing services to the Young-related facilities, and has made demands on the facilities’ insurer. But, in light of the Aetna settlement, she wonders if more assets are available to the grieving families.
“Representing so many people, especially children, I don’t want to undervalue their claims,” Gold said.
‘Let’s hope’
Reformers who hoped to see the case go to trial — thus making all the evidence public — were disappointed.
“That isn’t the outcome we would like to see for all the victims,” said advocate Jennifer Turner. “We know by the other filings and stories the catastrophic outcomes this operation caused. A hit to the wallet is something, and all we can expect from big insurance. Let’s hope we see something bigger coming with the federal investigation.”
Melissa Delise Ruby, who runs the 8,000-member Facebook group “It’s Time for Ethics in Addiction Treatment,” expects that to be the case.
“A settlement was always the most likely outcome, especially now that there’s an awareness of an FBI investigation,” she said. “It will end the ability for the Youngs to further incriminate themselves through the civil court process. It’s not over. Sooner or later (hopefully sooner for everyone’s sake) they’ll face their consequences in criminal courts.”
Aetna settled with these defendants: Nathan Young, David Young, 9 Silver LLC, 55 Silver LLC, Helping Hands Rehabilitation Clinic, Joser Forever, Get Real Recovery, Healing Path Detox, Ocean Valley Behavioral Health, Rodeo Recovery, Sunset Rehab, Natural Rest House, Jose Ricardo Toscano Maldonado and Marc Adler.
Young and companies have also been hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in claims for unpaid rent and damages, most recently from landlords in Huntington Beach, Laguna Hills, Anaheim and Fountain Valley.