Joan Erney

Joan Erney recently retired after over 35 years in the public behavioral health system.   Starting her career as a direct services worker in crisis intervention services in Dauphin County, she was most recently the Chief Executive Officer at Community Behavioral Health, Philadelphia’s administrative management organization for the Health Choices behavioral health Medicaid program.   During her tenure Philadelphia saw the expansion of Medicaid to over 700,000 Philadelphians.  Erney was noted for developing a collaborative approach with providers, members, advocates and system partners to effect positive change to the Philadelphia behavioral health landscape. Under her tenure, CBH received National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) full accreditation status and launched numerous successful initiatives to improve access to and the quality of children’s services, including psychiatric residential treatment services.  CBH also developed innovative approaches to address the opioid epidemic, support individuals on the Autism spectrum, and redesign day services for persons with serious mental illness.  Pay for Performance, enhanced use and payment for evidenced based practices and the development of value- based payment models were further developed and used to impact the quality of service delivery. Prior to her role at CBH, Erney was in senior leadership roles at SAMHSA and Community Care Behavioral Health and was the Deputy Secretary of the Office of Mental Health and Substance Use Services (OMHSAS) under the Rendell administration.   In her state role, Erney closed three state hospitals,  expanded the HealthChoices behavioral health system statewide; created a criminal justice initiative; saw the development and impact of peer services, created a robust advisory structure, and made numerous policy and program changes to enhance the services for children and their families with behavioral health challenges.  Her prior experience also includes policy and legislative work with the PA Community Providers Association (now RCPA) and CEO of Community Behavioral Health Network of PA (now Perform Care). Joan is a graduate of Penn State University and received her JD from Widener School of Law.