Researchers at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health used “secret shoppers” posing as heroin users seeking help to determine how difficult it was to obtain assistance. The undercover researchers contacted hundreds of US treatment clinics in states with the highest overdose death rates, and the secret shoppers were turned down for appointments frequently, “especially if they said they were insured through Medicaid.” The help-seekers faced other roadblocks including high fees and a government website riddled with incorrect phone numbers.