Addiction maven Per Wickstrom has found a new way to funnel traffic to his tottering drug rehabilitation empire...or should I call it a "hempire"? And could there be a medical credit card connection?
Your girl Miss Fortune discovered this pallid little website, www.grantfamilyconsulting.com, during a Google search for "216 St. Mary's Lake Road" in Battle Creek.
Hmm? Grant Family Consulting, I asked myself. Just who are these Grants and what "consulting" could they be providing?
One of the many things I learned during my years in New York City was the definition of a consultant--a person who borrows your watch and tells you what time it is (thank you for the joke, Herb Manloveg!). But I have a feeling these "consultants" are interested in more than your watch.
Hey, look at that! It's another Michigan business entity with Phil Slot as its registered agent. Regular readers of the blog will remember Phil and his law firm as Per Wickstrom's newest acquisition.
Let's burrow into this entity and see what kind of grubs we can dig up. Grant Family Consulting was incorporated in 2009 at 163 North Avenue in Battle Creek. And, look, it's Lewis Anderson! What a surprise.
That address sounds so familiar...of course, it's the home of Tranquility Detox!
But Grant Family Consulting touts the benefits of chiropractic care, something no one in the Wickstrom hempire is licensed to practice. Right? Just review the names in its 2013 Grant Family Consulting Michigan corporation update, and it's Wickstrom and Anderson. Not a Grant in the bunch.
Oh, snap! But the Grants say "Grant Family Consulting has moved it's (sic) offices and has joined forces" with A Forever Recovery! Must have done that when they should have been studying grammar and punctuation in junior high. But how can you join forces with something you were already part of? And just who is providing the chiropractic services at this Potemkin clinic?
A trip back in time, courtesy of that massive digital archive The Wayback Machine, indicates this site has been floating around since 2011. But that's strange when you consider the "chiropractor" whose expired license is shown on the site, Dr. Seth M. Egelston, DO.
Egelston is an osteopath, and osteopathic manipulative medicine is the core technique of osteopathic medicine.
That's right, the license was already expired in 2011 when the site went online.
Egelston's not even a chiropractor--however, he is a long-time associate of Per Wickstrom's going back to the Stone Hawk days.
So let's regroup: we've got another fake feeder website, embroidered with the flossy fiction that it's just a humble little chiropractic clinic.
And you're probably asking yourself: why would Per Wickstrom and his merry band of pranksters set up a fake chiropractic clinic?
Could it be that Wickstrom is trying to have a chiropractic arm--even a faux one--to help him squeeze through the loophole that prevents consumers from using medical credit cards to finance their drug and alcohol treatment?
Could be, so let's see how this "chiropractic credit card" scam might work.
As the New York Times reported on October 19, patients sign up for cards issued through practitioners’ offices by
companies like iCare Financial of Atlanta; CareCredit, a unit of General
Electric; and banks like Wells Fargo and Citibank. The cards typically charge no interest for a promotional period of
several months, but after that, the consumer is charged rates of up to
30 percent if the debt is not paid in full. The high rates are often
applied to the original amount of the loan, not just to the amount still
owed.
A growing number of health care professionals are urging patients to
pay for treatment not covered by their insurance plans with credit cards
and lines of credit that can be arranged quickly in the provider’s
office.
However, drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment facilities are prohibited from offering these health care credit cards to pay expenses not covered by insurance.
But chiropractors can...are you getting the picture?
So give the Grants a call at 269-964-4729 and tell them your back realllly hurts.
And when you're done talking, send your girl Miss Fortune an email (tcmissfortune@yahoo.com). We can compare notes.
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