Behavioral Health Archives - Health Management Associates

Suzanne Rabideau

A transformational health and human services leader, Suzanne Rabideau has more than 25 years of experience working with, and inspiring individuals, youth, families, organizations, and communities to reach their health and health system goals. Her career has included working as a mental health and family therapist, a state Medicaid leader, as chief executive officer for a behavioral health provider organization specializing in crisis services, and as a health and human services consultant.

Suzanne’s focus of work at HMA covers delivery system design including integrated approaches, system collaborations, learning communities, clinical practice, and operational transformation within and between health and human service providers. Suzanne is skilled at working with others to design approaches that deploy high touch, high tech and high support approaches. She delights in helping others align clinical, operational and financial strategies to achieve goals.

Before joining HMA, Suzanne was a successful independent consultant and business owner. Her client work included supporting Medicaid agencies, national managed care organizations, and provider organizations to develop and implement programs in line with new value-based approaches. She also helped clients write and win proposals for Medicaid, facilitated tech-enabled innovative client services, facilitated community coalitions and provided interim leadership during times of transition.

In addition, she served as president and chief executive officer for the Crisis Response Network, a startup that became a national leader in crisis response services including call center, community response, crisis urgent care, and in-patient programs. Suzanne led the implementation of tech-enabled solutions to support evidence-based practices and meet and exceed operational and clinical outcomes.

She previously served the state of Arizona as a senior policy advisor for Medicaid programs where she led state agency projects, including implementing the largest behavioral health managed care Medicaid contract in the country. She also designed and directed the restructuring of the state’s behavioral health regularizing documents. Also, she was part of a team charged with implementing a redesign of the state Medicaid behavioral health delivery system. The work allowed providers such as the Boys and Girls Club and homes health providers to add services including peer and family support services and living skills.

She has a Master of Business Administration in healthcare management from Western International University, a Master of Arts in family therapy from Ottawa University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Arizona State University.

Suzanne is an avid mariner and enjoys spending her free time on any kind of boat including a kayak, sunfish sailboat, cruiser or cruise ship.

Josh Rubin

Josh Rubin provides consultation, strategic planning, analysis, and technical assistance to health care purchasers, providers, platforms, and regulators with a special focus on behavioral health, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and child welfare service providers. Josh’s specializations include facilitating strategic planning and merger negotiations, supporting the conversion to value-based purchasing arrangements, the development of independent practice associations and other platforms, and healthcare transformation efforts, including 1115 waivers.

Prior to joining HMA, Josh’s expertise included planning, purchasing, monitoring, and managing a wide range of human services programs, including mental health, housing, substance use disorders, developmental disabilities and child welfare programs. In his role as an assistant commissioner for New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Josh oversaw a portfolio of over $850 million of mental health, substance use disorders, developmental disabilities, and early intervention programs. During this time, he was responsible for the assessment and strategic planning for these programs.

Josh was also the vice president and chief operating officer of the Mental Health Association of New York City (MHA-NYC, which is called Vibrant! today), a leader in services, advocacy, and education for people with mental illness and their families. MHA-NYC and its subsidiary, Link2Health Solutions, Inc. operate a wide range of behavioral health services, including residential, rehabilitation, child and adolescent, and family support services, including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the National Disaster Distress Helpline, the NFL Lifeline, and the Veterans Crisis Line.

Prior to joining MHA-NYC, Josh was the director of policy and planning for YAI Network where he helped develop an international training and consulting business and co-wrote a chapter on strategic planning for a social work textbook. During his years of New York City service, he served as the assistant commissioner for mental hygiene policy and assistant commissioner for chemical dependency services; chief policy officer and chief administrative officer for the Division of Mental Hygiene; and as the special assistant to the executive deputy commissioner for mental hygiene services. Before his government service, he was on the staff of the Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agencies.

Joshearned his master’s degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and his bachelor’s degree in religion and the humanities from the University of Chicago.

Kristan McIntosh

Kristan McIntosh specializes in behavioral health programming designed to both enhance access to community-based care and facilitate program and organizational sustainability.

She has extensive development experience, working across a number of human service sectors to fund and implement programming that responds to the needs of a wide array of vulnerable populations, including individuals with co-occurring behavioral health and chronic health conditions; children, youth, and families; and those affected by the criminal justice system and/or homelessness.

Prior to joining HMA, Kristan served as a project manager at SAE & Associates. She established a successful track record of helping secure grant funding for nonprofit behavioral health clients. A social worker by training, Kristan began her career working with children and youth diagnosed with serious emotional disturbances and their families in a clinical residential setting.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Williams College and her Master of Social Work in Social Enterprise Administration from Columbia University School of Social Work.

Kristan currently lives in New York City, and she is a three-time marathoner with a goal of running a marathon in every major city in the United States. She volunteers with a number of organizations, including Back on My Feet-NYC, an organization that uses running as an empowerment tool for individuals experiencing homelessness.

Gina Lasky

Gina Lasky is a licensed psychologist with expertise in public sector behavioral health system design and programming including integration of behavioral health and primary care. She evaluates organizational readiness for integration and guides development and implementation of new models of collaborative care for delivery systems, county health systems, community behavioral health centers, and state corrections agencies.

She has examined state policy and administrative barriers to integrated care and has published work on leadership and team development in integrated care with the Center for Integrated Health Solutions and the American Psychiatric Association. She is co-editor of Integrated Care: A Guide to Effective Implementation for the American Psychiatric Association.

Gina has provided direct clinical care for numerous non-profit organizations, a public hospital, and a state hospital where she specialized in serious mental illness and working with individuals who were aggressive towards themselves and others. Gina has had leadership responsibility for an acute treatment unit, a detox program, crisis services, outpatient mental health clinics, and substance use treatment programs in community behavioral health. She has been responsible for clinical program development, quality improvement, and directly supervised clinical managers and therapists.

Gina is skilled in the culture change required to advance system transformation, such as integration. Her specialties include strategic planning, leadership models, team development and change management. Gina also works in partnership with HMA Community Strategies on building multi-sector and community-based solutions to promote integration at the system level and to engage organizations addressing the social determinants of health. She has experience in community organizing, group facilitation and partnership development.

Gina earned her doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Denver and a master’s degree in public leadership with a specialization in multi-sector management from George Washington University. Gina is the past President of the College of Behavioral Health Leadership.

Gina lives in the mountains in Colorado and is an avid hiker and wildlife photographer.

Gina R. Eckart

Gina Eckart is a licensed mental health counselor with 20 years of experience in public behavioral health.

Prior to joining HMA, Gina served as the director of the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction. She was responsible for policy, funding and management of the state’s $450 million public mental health and addiction system of care, including six state psychiatric hospitals and more than 2,200 employees.

She collaborated with the Indiana Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning to improve efficiency and oversight of the Medicaid Rehabilitation Option (MRO) program, to develop a 1915i application to serve persons with serious mental illness, and to implement a successful Community Alternatives to Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities (CA-PRTF) demonstration for children with serious mental health issues. Under her leadership, the state successfully transitioned 110 individuals with intellectual disabilities from state psychiatric hospitals into community-based care, saving an estimated $15 million in the first year.

Gina served in various clinical and leadership roles at the Midtown Community Mental Health Center in Indianapolis, where she began her career as a crisis clinician. Gina managed a 24-hour crisis unit responsible for psychiatric consults within a public county hospital emergency department. Other areas of focus included development and management of a centralized intake process and creation of an information and scheduling line which reduced wait times and improved access to care. She also led expansion of center-wide quality assurance and utilization management processes.

Gina earned her master’s degree in mental health and bachelor’s degree from Indiana University. She has been an adjunct professor at the Indiana University School of Social Work and a mental health and addiction trainer for the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and local crisis intervention team.

Gina has served on many local advisory boards and panels, including the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors and the Standards, Training and Practices Subcommittee for Lifeline — the national suicide hotline.

Laura Collins

Laura Collins is a behavioral health professional with strong experience in hospital and clinical patient care, hospital administration and behavioral health integration. She has worked extensively in psychiatric hospital programming and operations, project implementation and regulatory preparation, specific to psychiatry.

Laura is a seasoned coach and mentor helping inpatient hospital leaders improve their systems of care at all levels, including helping clinics transition into Health Homes work. She is also an advocate and expert in civil commitment law, forensic and correctional mental health programs and mental health law.

Before joining HMA, Laura worked for 20 years with Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, most recently as a behavioral health administrator. On the inpatient-side, Laura provided oversight of all civil commitment processes, regulatory preparation, psychiatric program development and training.

She also implemented behavioral health integration models into primary and specialized care and worked to expand the model across the University of Washington’s medical clinics.

While serving in leadership roles, she has developed and implemented programs to examine systems-level involvement in managing behavioral health trends in the state of Washington.

Laura previously served as interim chief operating officer for Del Amo Hospital, a freestanding psychiatric hospital in Torrance, CA. She provided oversight to daily inpatient and outpatient hospital operations, and managed and developed departments with a quality improvement eye for trauma-informed, patient-centered and evidenced-based practice.

She began her career as a social worker and earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Washington.

Outside of work, Laura is a cellist and triathlete, although admits to being a bit out of practice with both.

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Suzanne Rabideau