FAQ

• In-Person Addiction Treatment: Any website, application, or merchant that provides information about in-person drug or alcohol addiction treatment or facilitates in-person or online drug or alcohol treatment, other than at a private residence or non-clinical setting.
• Mutual Support Groups: Any website, application, online forum, or merchant that does not offer treatment for drugs or alcohol, but that facilitates interactions between non-professional members engaged in recovery.
• Crisis Hotlines: Any website, application, call center, chat feature, or telephone number that provides or purports to provide remote assistance or information to individuals who are in recovery or who are seeking information about addiction or addiction treatment, or to any person associated with such individuals, that does not identify particular treatment facilities or entities on the site itself.

For Canadian providers, this certification currently applies only to advertising on Google.

Lead generators and sober living homes (recovery residences) are currently not eligible for LegitScript's Addiction Treatment Certification Program.

An applicant is a lead generator if:

• The website is not owned, operated or commonly controlled by the entity that owns or operates the addiction treatment provider to which it refers internet users, and
• It refers potential clients to third party addiction treatment providers, irrespective of whether those addiction treatment providers independently meet LegitScript certification criteria.

We define a sober living home as a facility that is not providing clinical services or addiction treatment, but that instead provides a cooperative living environment and is typically located in a private residence or similar setting and is not part of a larger treatment program offered by an addiction treatment provider. We understand that there are legitimate recovery residences; in the future, we may grow the certification program to encompass recovery residences, but we don't have a timeline set for that.

No programs were exempted or grandfathered into LegitScript Addiction Treatment Certification.

At this point, our program is open only for providers of drug and alcohol addiction treatment services within the United States and Canada. Google allows advertising for addiction treatment services in the United States and Canada. Currently Microsoft Bing and Meta allow ads in the United States. For more information about these advertising policies, please contact Google, Bing, and Meta directly. In the event these advertising policies change, LegitScript will re-evaluate the reach of its certification services.

This is driven partly by state laws and regulations, and partly by the nature of the business. In general, we're typically looking for an applicant that is providing addiction treatment services to have either an on-site medical provider or, at the very least, someone who functionally is on-site (e.g., at a nearby facility and regularly in attendance). We do see this as a best practice in most cases, but there are some applicants (e.g., mutual support groups or crisis hotlines) for which this is usually inapplicable. Please contact us if you have more questions about this.