The Avisa Group

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Suzanne Gelber, MSW, Ph.D. Dr. Suzanne Gelber, an expert policy consultant and researcher focused on substance abuse, mental health and chronic disease, graduated from the University of Michigan's Joint Doctoral Program in Social Work and Sociology, where she received fellowships from both NIDA and NIMH. Dr. Gelber worked in key management roles for the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation, spent 8 years as an academic, and served as an executive in two significant managed health care companies in the private sector before returning to full time policy research.. Dr. Gelber also built and coordinated Towers Perrin's former national mental health and substance abuse practice for six years, during which she and the team successfully implemented mental health and substance abuse transformation efforts that are still in place with more than 200 Fortune 500 and large public sector employers. Dr. Gelber founded The Avisa Group with her economist and physician partners in 1995 and amongst other projects has worked extensively with SAMHSA/CSAT and CMHS at the Federal level and with states and counties on both substance abuse and mental health initiatives, including performance management and measurement. Today she assists large employers and state and Federal public agencies, as well as national and state policymaking and evaluation efforts and private sector clients in substance abuse, mental health, psychopharmaceuticals and chronic disease. Amongst other projects, Dr. Gelber and Dr. Rinaldo have worked closely with California's Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, the State of North Carolina, and other public sector clients on visible policy efforts including Proposition 36 and Proposition 63. Along with Dr. Bartlett, Dr. Gelber consulted to NCQA as it developed its now successful behavioral health accreditation efforts. She served on SAMHSA/CSAT's National Treatment Plan panel and, more recently, on its national buprenorphine waiver evaluation research team. Dr. Gelber also works on policy and strategic issues of medication-assisted treatment and other innovations with public sector purchasers, foundations and private sector officials and firms, as well as on issues of employer, state and Federal financing and benefit design for substance abuse and mental health. She and Dr. Rinaldo are directing the Avisa Group study of the effects of the organizational placement of state substance abuse agencies within government. She and Dr. Rinaldo recently completed projects involving California's Proposition 36 (Treatment Instead of Incarceration) Initiative and Alameda County's Proposition 63 (Millionaire's tax for mental health) proposal. All three Avisa Group principals recently completed another in a 3-year set of studies for private equity firms; this one focused both on the methadone and the residential treatment sector industries. Dr. Gelber serves on numerous Federal expert and research committees, as a reviewer for CMS' Health Care Financing Review and for Inquiry and she has managed a multi-site IRB. Dr.

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