“Addiction treatment doesn’t work.” “Rehabs and treatment centers just a want people’s money.”
In recent years, criticism of addiction treatment, and the rehab space has long been known in the public eye through the contributed stigma of unethical and often illegal practices, such as overbilling, patient brokering, or poor quality of care.
Though, with one in four people worldwide impacted by the paralyzing effects of addiction or mental illness, America still continues to find itself in the grips of an ongoing and potentially rising opioid epidemic like never before.
“We believe it is our place to change that narrative,” said Zach Snitzer, Director of Business Development at Maryland Addiction Recovery Center (MARC).
Changing A Broken Society
With the motive of creating a change within the stigmatized sub-culture of recovery are two best friends, Sam Bierman and Zach Snitzer. The two know firsthand the effects of addiction and met during a pivotal time in both their lives – treatment. Now, they’re co-founders of MARC, a game-changer in addiction treatment.
Bierman and Snitzer, along with Snitzer’s wife, had each worked in the field of addiction treatment and saw gaps in services, barriers that needed to be overcome, and an overall lack of quality services that truly addressed the issues of addiction and mental health and guided patients to lifelong recovery. Bierman, a certified addiction professional having been mentored during his time working for Caron Treatment Centers, and Snitzer, with a background in public relations, media, marketing, and business development, set off on a course to change both the paradigm of addiction treatment and how it is viewed by society.
“For too long the standard of care for addiction treatment was a 30-day inpatient treatment model that did little to really address the needs of patients,” Snitzer explained. “People would leave their homes, get sent away for a month, then return and the general idea is they had completed treatment. Yet we continue to have these horrific relapse rates and poor outcomes.”
Addiction As A Chronic Illness
One of the many issues in a broken society is that addiction is considered a chronic illness. Like many other chronic illnesses, they require long-term care that not only offers psycho-education, but addresses the core issues driving the addiction.
With that in mind, the two best friends decided to set-forth a plan of action to deliver access to multiple points of care. Providing access to highly qualified medical and clinical staff, MARC not only addresses underlying issues but offers life-skill development, academic goals, vocational training, career integration, and recovery support.
“We’ve created our organization on the principles of transparency and collaboration. We believe in order to gain the trust back of those in need, we need to operate with transparency and good faith collaboration,” Snizter stated. “Additionally, we’ve attempted to use our voice and platform not as a way to promote our company, but rather as a platform to educate the consumer and the general public, help them become informed, to be insightful in their decision-making, and ultimately in guiding themselves or their loved on that is suffering to finding the best, most clinically-appropriate place where they can begin to heal.”
Maryland Addiction Recovery Center
Throughout its success and continued growth, Maryland Addiction Recovery Center has taken a lead throughout the industry to change not only change the negative perception often associated with addiction treatment, but make recovery the epidemic. The idea that “treatment doesn’t work” or that “rehabs just want people’s money” are is longer existent with Snizter and Bierman at the helm.
Starting in late 2013, Maryland Addiction Recovery Center has received numerous recognitions, including being named to the Inc. 5000 list twice in a row in 2018 and 2019. Sam Bierman sits on the membership board of the National Associate of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP) and local non-profit Shalom Tikvah. Zach Snitzer is a member of the advisory board of the National Conference on Addiction Disorders, the Nikki Perlow Foundation, and is a founder of the D.C. Maryland Virginia Professional Liaison’s Association (DMV-PLA.)
