Luke Bergmann, PhD, MSW
Principal
Health Management Associates
Los Angeles, CA
Luke Bergmann has over 15 years of executive experience providing strategic leadership to municipal and county behavioral health offices. His expertise spans programmatic and operational leadership, including substance use treatment and crisis services, to strategic and transformational innovation.
Before joining Health Management Associates, Luke was director of behavioral health with the County of San Diego’s Health and Human Services Agency. Leading the county’s largest department, he oversaw operations for the county’s psychiatric hospital, a skilled nursing facility and multiple community clinics. He also led the County Behavioral Health Plan, overseeing care for those with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) who were enrolled in Medi-Cal.
As director, Luke provided strategic direction for all departmental business, including community contracted services, across a diverse regional network. He established California’s first Behavioral Health Population Health Office, enabling data-driven improvement, and built an innovative crisis continuum of services, standing up seven crisis stabilization units and 44 mobile crisis response teams distributed regionally across the county.
Along with his strategic leadership skills, Luke has demonstrated expertise in service line transformation. As assistant vice president of the NYC Health + Hospitals Division of Medical and Professional Affairs’ Office of Behavioral Health, he led behavioral health transformation efforts across the nation’s largest municipal health system. These efforts included mental health and substance use care transformation initiatives, adapting to fiscal and regulatory changes including the New York State’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Program (DSRIP) and Medicaid’s behavioral health coverage shifting to a managed benefit in the state.
Luke’s behavioral health experience also includes operational leadership. In a previous role with NYC Health and Hospitals’ Office of Behavioral Health, he served as the clinical and administrative lead for substance use services. He developed and implemented population health informed clinical standards and workflows in outpatient and inpatient behavioral health specialty care, primary care and other ambulatory services, inpatient medicine, and emergency departments.
Luke earned his doctorate in social work and cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan. He also has a Master of Social Work in interpersonal clinical practice with adults, a master’s degree in ethnology, and a bachelor’s degree in art history and anthropology from the University of Michigan.