Chief Medical OfficerMatthew Ruble, MD
Dr. Matthew Ruble is the Chief Medical Officer of Discovery Behavioral Health. Dr. Ruble has a deep passion for advancing the behavioral health industry through education/training, implementation of Integrated Physical & Behavioral health models, publication, innovation and Payer and Provider collaboration. His initial top priority, a priority shared by DBH’s CEO, was to harness the power of DBH’s enormous and omnipresent measurement-based assessment and care data generator. He achieved this by creating a research and business strategy collaboration with colleagues at Mass General Brigham (MGB), a major teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. This allowed for an unbiased, external, academic validation of DBH’s Clinical Outcomes. A former Faculty member of Harvard Medical School for nearly 20 years, Dr. Ruble was the Director of Behavioral Health and the Associate Training Director for the Adult Psychiatry residency training program at the Cambridge Health Alliance. During this time, he was Director of Advanced Psychopharmacology education for the Behavioral Health service and was responsible for training faculty, all lines of clinicians, residents and medical students and all lines of trainees the core topics in Psychiatry evidence-based practices including:
• Integrated behavioral and physical health care delivery
• The interface of Healthcare and Business
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and Measurement-based care
• Psychiatric curriculum development
• Research & Publication
• Service system creation and integration
To expand his ability to help others, he then accepted the position of National Medical Director overseeing Clinical Behavioral Health Strategy, Utilization Management, Innovation and Integrated Primary Care and BH for Humana. He was part of the team that reviewed and advised Humana Leadership on all behavioral health technology/innovations for potential investment/aquisition and implementation. He developed, operationalized and managed the Integrated Primary Care (PC) and Behavioral Health (BH) service for Humana’s Primary Care practices, now named CenterWell. He created the curriculum for, and directed the course on BH in PC, for the Primary Care providers. Dr. Ruble led Humana’s Clinical and Operational channels for the project to replace a competitor and to “win” the Florida Medicaid market. During this time he co-authored a JAMA Nov. 2022 article on, “Assessment of Unmet Health-Related Social Needs Among Patients With Mental Illness Enrolled in Medicare Advantage” and an article in Population Health Management April 2022 titled, “Care Management of Comorbid Medical and Psychiatric Illness: A Conceptual Framework for Improving Equity of Care”.
As Discovery Behavioral Health’s CMO, he is elevating the needs of patients, providers and Payers, by increasing access to care, decreasing Barriers to care, providing equitable care while prioritizing Value and the Quadruple AIM. He promotes the integration of BH into all of healthcare. He is also ensuring the quality and safety of DBH clinical services are superior, evidenced based, measurement based. DBH’s Clinical Outcomes are regularly and continually validated by the DBH/MGB Team. Our Clinical Outcomes are ranked as “Superior”. He created and directs the Physicians Advisory Committee (PAC), the PPS Professional Psychiatric Service for TRD (TMS and Ketamine) and the Clinical Performance and Process Optimization group. He is the executive Leader in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and he leads DBH’s integration of BH and Primary Care efforts with Large tertiary care centers. He created the Real World Research program and the Learning Health Systems in collaboration with Mass General Brigham Primary Investigator Dr. Phil Wong, a major teaching hospital in the Harvard Medical School system. With more to come, this collaboration has produced publications like:
• Changes in Recovery Assessment Scale Scores During a Treatment Episode Among Patients in a Large Behavioral Health Care System; Psychiatric Services https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ps.20240187
• Association between depression severity, mental health recovery and dropout from behavioral health care treatment; Psychiatric Research Communications: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277259872400031X?via%3Dihub
Dr. Ruble earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. He then completed an Infectious Disease research Fellowship at Brown University’s School of Medicine before completing his MD at the Carver School of Medicine at the University of Iowa. During Medical school he studied fMRI imaging in schizophrenia with Dr. Nancy Andreasen, former Editor of the Amer. J. of Psychiatry and primary editor of the DSM-V. He then attended Harvard Medical School to intern at the Department of Medicine and to complete his residency at the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Ruble became Chief Resident of Psychopharmacology at Cambridge Health Alliance. He then completed his Fellowship in Medical Education at the Academy of Harvard Medical School.
