Biography

Kenneth Minkoff, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist with a certificate of additional qualifications in addiction psychiatry, a dedicated community psychiatrist with extensive experience in public and private inpatient and outpatient settings, and an experienced psychiatric administrator who continues active clinical practice with seriously mentally ill and dually diagnosed patients.

Dr. Minkoff currently is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is recognized as one of the nation's leading experts on integrated treatment of individuals with co-occurring psychiatric and substance disorders (ICOPSD) or "dual diagnosis," and on the development of integrated systems of care for such individuals, through the implementation of a national consensus best practice model for systems design: the Comprehensive Continuous Integrated System of Care (see below). He has developed an integrated conceptual framework for treatment of co-occurring disorders based on application of a disease and recovery model - with parallel phases of treatment and recovery - for each disorder. He has lectured widely on this topic since 1985, giving several hundred presentations throughout the United States and Canada. In 1991, Dr. Minkoff co-edited, with Robert Drake, MD, Dual Diagnosis of Serious Mental Illness and Substance Disorder (Jossey-Bass).

In addition, Dr. Minkoff has developed considerable expertise in public and private managed care. From 1990 to 1997, he was medical director of Choate Integrated Behavioral Care, a horizontally (psychiatry and addiction) and vertically (multiple levels of care) integrated behavioral health system in Massachusetts. He co-edited, with David Pollack, MD, Managed Mental Health Care in the Public Sector: A Survival Manual (Harwood Academic Publishers, Gordon & Breach, 1997), has developed a range of level of care assessment products and utilization management tools. Further, Dr. Minkoff participated in the development of LOCUS (Level of Care Utilization System) as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Community Psychiatrists (AACP), where he is chair of the Health Care Systems Committee. In addition, Dr. Minkoff participated in a national task force, chaired by David Mee-Lee, MD, to create American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) Patient Placement Criteria (PPC) 2R (1999), incorporating co-occurring disorders into national utilization management guidelines for addiction treatment, and introducing the concepts of Dual Diagnosis Capability (DDC) and Dual Diagnosis Enhanced (DDE) as program standards to be utilized to design a system of care for individuals with co-occurring disorders.

As a result of his nationally recognized expertise in both co-occurring disorders and managed care, Dr. Minkoff was appointed in 1996 to chair the Center for Mental Health Services Managed Care Initiative expert consensus panel on co-occurring disorders, and was lead author of the panel report entitled: Co-occurring Psychiatric and Substance Disorders in Managed Care Systems: Standards of Care, Practice Guidelines, Workforce Competencies and Training Curricula (1998). The report articulates a model for the development of a comprehensive, continuous, integrated system of care (CCISC) for individuals with (and without) co-occurring disorders, within the constraints of existing resources. This model was referenced in the recently released SAMHSA Report to Congress on co-occurring disorders (2002). Dr. Minkoff was also invited to co-author, with Douglas Ziedonis, MD, an issues paper on co-occurring disorders for the President’s New Freedom Commission (2002).He is currently consulting to, or has consulted to, a number of states that are involved in adaptation of this model for implementation in their own systems, including Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Arizona, and Louisiana.

In addition to membership on the Board of Directors of AACP (1990 - present), Dr. Minkoff is a member of the Committee on Psychiatry and the Community for the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1982-present), and chaired the committee for the report entitled: A Resident's Guide to the Treatment of People with Chronic Mental Illness (1993). He is also a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, member of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatrists, and is on the Substance Abuse Advisory Committee of the National Council of Community Behavioral Health Providers. He is also a reviewer for the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, Community Mental Health Journal, and Psychiatric Services.

Dr. Minkoff's major professional activity is the provision of training and consultation on clinical services and systems design for individuals with co-occurring disorders, and is engaged in numerous ongoing projects for implementing CCISC at state and regional levels in both the United States and Canada. With his consulting partner, Christie A. Cline, MD, MBA (president of ZiaPartners and former Medical Director for the Behavioral Health Services Division of the New Mexico Department of Health), Dr. Minkoff has developed a systems change toolkit (See www.zialogic.org) for CCISC implementation. Dr. Minkoff and Dr. Cline are currently providing (or have provided) consultation for CCISC implementation in New Mexico, Maine, District of Columbia, Vermont, Florida, San Diego (California), Manitoba, British Columbia, Mid-Valley Behavioral Care Network (Oregon), Lynchburg (Virginia), Grand Rapids (Michigan), Worcester and Montgomery Counties (Maryland). Other current or past CCISC projects include Arizona, Alaska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Utica (New York), Minnesota, Alabama, and Beaumont (Texas).

Dr. Minkoff has provided training and consultation in all but two states and in Canada, Europe, and New Zealand. Major topics include:

Dr. Minkoff also consults on topics in general administrative psychiatry, including quality improvement, treatment planning, and physician management, and in clinical psychiatry, including recovery-oriented treatment for individuals with serious mental illness; training clinicians in attitudes, values, knowledge, and skills for treating individuals with serious mental illness; and family/consumer/provider collaboration.