New and changing law
Louisiana Act 312 (2026), explained
A dedicated body-brokering crime that reaches the funnel, not just the facility.
Louisiana's Act 312 of 2026, carried as House Bill 676, was signed and took effect May 22, 2026, enacting La. R.S. 14:70.5.1, which makes it a felony to pay or take a fee or kickback for referring a patient to a substance abuse or mental health facility, and names the marketing that arranges the payment.
For years Louisiana reached treatment kickbacks through general fraud law and the federal statutes; in 2026 it wrote a dedicated crime. Act 312 of 2026, carried as House Bill 676, was signed by the governor and became effective May 22, 2026, adding La. R.S. 14:70.5.1, styled as fraudulent patient referrals, the practice the bill calls body brokering. It is a crime to knowingly solicit, offer, pay, or receive any fee, payment, rebate, or commission, including a kickback or bribe, for referring a patient to a residential substance abuse facility, a mental health facility, or a facility licensed for substance use disorder treatment or services. The penalty is imprisonment with or without hard labor for up to five years, a fine of up to 50,000 dollars, or both, and a court may order restitution. It does not turn on who pays the bill, so a cash-pay or commercially insured placement is inside it, not only a Medicaid one.
No person shall knowingly solicit, offer, pay, or receive any fee, payment, rebate, or commission, including a kickback or bribe, in cash or in kind, for the referral of a patient to a residential substance abuse facility, a mental health facility, or a facility licensed for substance use disorder treatment or services; nor shall any person assist, conspire with, urge, or market to another to make, furnish, or receive such a payment.
Most referral-fee statutes speak to providers and facilities; this one reaches the marketer by name. La. R.S. 14:70.5.1 also makes it a crime to assist, conspire with, urge, or market to another person to make, furnish, or receive a prohibited payment. If you write the funnel, run the helpline, or sell the leads that put a patient in front of a Louisiana facility for a per-head fee, the marketing itself is charged conduct, not a step removed from it. The risk is not only in the words on the page, it is in the arrangement the words are selling: a landing page that promises to match a caller with a center, funded by a placement fee from that center, advertises the exact deal the statute forbids. The version that survives describes real options, helps a reader check a license, and is paid a fixed fee that does not turn on where the caller lands.
Louisiana already had La. R.S. 14:70.5, fraudulent remuneration, but its hook is the Louisiana medical assistance program, the state's Medicaid line. It punishes remuneration for referrals tied to services billed to that program. The 2026 crime is broader: it does not depend on a government payer, so the cash-pay and commercially insured placements that sat outside 14:70.5 now sit inside 14:70.5.1. Read together, the older statute covers the Medicaid angle and Act 312 closes the private-pay gap that treatment marketers used to work in.
It is unlawful to intentionally solicit, receive, offer, or pay any remuneration, including any kickback, bribe, or rebate, in return for referring an individual for the furnishing of any good or service for which payment may be made, in whole or in part, under the Louisiana medical assistance program.
The scanner reads the deal a page is advertising, not the contract behind it. A placement-fee helpline pitch aimed at Louisiana is the tell.
Louisiana families: our helpline matches you with the right rehab, and the center pays us a placement fee for every admission we send.
Taking a per-admission placement fee for steering a patient to a Louisiana substance abuse or mental health facility is the conduct La. R.S. 14:70.5.1 criminalizes, and the statute names marketing to arrange such a payment.
Louisiana body brokering (fraudulent patient referrals) · La. R.S. 14:70.5.1 (Act 312 of 2026)
Louisiana families: we walk you through your options and how to verify a center's license, and we are paid a flat monthly fee that does not change with who you choose.
A fixed fee untied to any placement, with no payment for the referral itself, sits outside the body-brokering crime.
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