Donald W. Bechtold, M.D.
Medical Director
Vice President of Healthcare and Integration
It is essential that our healthcare system transform into one that incentivizes preventive and early intervention care and services that promote health and wellness in individuals and across the general population. Our current healthcare system which mainly incentivizes illness care is at best inefficient, and at times less than optimally effective, and only a transformed healthcare system will be able to deliver the “Triple Aim” outcomes of a better experience of care for the individual, better health outcomes for the population, both at reduced costs to the system. I bring to the Office recognized leadership at local, regional and national levels, a perspective informed by 17 years in academic medicine, 15 years in community behavioral health, and more than 35 years as a practicing physician, and a commitment to integrated whole-person healthcare delivered in a truly value-based system.
Donald W. Bechtold, MD is a graduate of the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine where he also received his post-graduate specialty training in General (adult) Psychiatry and his subspecialty training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Following the completion of training, Dr. Bechtold joined the full-time faculty of the University Of Colorado School Of Medicine in 1985, where he served until 2001. His clinical appointments at the University included serving as Director of the Child and Family Clinic, Director of the Children’s Psychiatric Day Hospital, and Clinical Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, in addition to serving as Director of Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He also served as adjunct faculty at the Denver Seminary in the Master of Arts in Counseling program, and as a contract consultant with the Indian Health Service.
Dr. Bechtold has served on the manuscript review panels of Child Abuse and Neglect: the International Journal, and American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research: the Journal of the National Center; on the Editorial Boards of The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Pediatric Emergency News; and, as an NIMH External Reviewer for Research Development and Special Projects.
Among other research projects, he was the recipient of an NIMH Individual Faculty Scholar Award studying American Indian adolescent suicide, Principal Investigator of the Clinical Research and Screening Project Related to the Tragedy at Columbine High School, Collaborator on a Depression Care Collaborative focused on integrated depression care management in primary care sponsored by the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare and the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement, and Site Principal Investigator of the NIMH-funded “Depression Outcomes Study of Exercise (DOSE) for Adolescents.” He was the Principal Investigator of an Advancing Care Together award from the University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine and the Colorado Health Foundation focused on integrated physical and behavioral healthcare, and Project Director of a SAMHSA Primary and Behavioral Health Care Integration grant and of a similarly focused State Innovation Model grant through the Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council. Dr. Bechtold teaches, consults, publishes and presents both regionally and nationally.
Since 2001, Dr. Bechtold has served as Medical Director of Jefferson Center for Mental Health and as Vice President of Healthcare and Integration since 2011. Since 2014, he has also served as the Chief Medical Officer of Foothills Health Solutions. In addition, Dr. Bechtold served as the Medical Director for Foothills Behavioral Health (since 2005) and Foothills Behavioral Health Partners (since 2009) until 2011.
Dr. Bechtold is Board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in both General Psychiatry and in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Areas of focus for consultation, training and technical assistance include bidirectional integrated healthcare, care coordination and care management, high utilizer management and hotspotting, healthcare neighborhood development, organizational culture change, management and leadership development.
Jeanette Waxmonsky, Ph.D.
Director of Research Innovation at Jefferson Center
Jeanette Waxmonsky is the Director of Research Innovation at Jefferson Center’s Office of Healthcare Transformation, a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine, and a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Waxmonsky is a nationally renowned expert on behavioral health – primary care integration and implementation methodologies with 15 years’ experience in both academic and healthcare settings. Her clinical and research work focuses on the development and implementation of evidenced based behavioral health interventions and integrated care models for persons with psychiatric illness and medical comorbidities. She is the primary author for the Integrated Practice Assessment Tool (IPAT©) which measures the level of behavioral health – primary care integration among practices. Prior to joining Jefferson Center, Dr. Waxmonsky was the Director of Community Behavioral Health Integration at Colorado Access, a nonprofit health plan, and an associate professor at the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry where she was involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of integrated behavioral health programs for thousands of Coloradans. Dr. Waxmonsky spent 7 years directing the development, implementation, and evaluation of the Mental Health Center of Denver’s bidirectional integrated health home (described in the 2014 American Psychologist special issue on integrated care). She has presented at national and international conferences and has numerous publications.
Dr. Waxmonsky received her B.A. from Lafayette College in English and Psychology, M.A. from the University of Colorado in Clinical Psychology, and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Alabama. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Administration and Evaluation at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Through her former employment at both the University of Colorado and Colorado Access, she has had a lead role in securing over $7 million in grant funding to support integrated care programs and evidence based treatment interventions for medically underserved and minority populations.
Areas of focus for consultation, training and technical assistance include: integrated care research and implementation, including program infrastructure development and evaluation; bidirectional integrated healthcare; care coordination, care management, and self-management programs for persons with psychiatric and medical comorbidities; evidence based intervention translation into real world settings; grant writing; academic publications; establishing successful academic-community based partnerships; and developing innovative products and strategies for health care delivery systems.
John F. Talbot, Ph.D
Vice President of Corporate Strategy
John F. Talbot, Ph.D., is Vice President of Corporate Strategy for the Jefferson Center for Mental Health. In this role he is responsible for the development and implementation of corporate strategy, strategic alliances and new product development. Prior to this role, Dr. Talbot was Executive Vice President at OPEN MINDS, a national research and consulting firm which provided consultation, training and operational assistance to behavioral health providers, nonprofit organizations, and managed care organizations across the country.
Previous experience also included serving as the President of a network of agencies providing care to children and families. In this role with Colorado Care Management, Dr. Talbot also led the development of a coalition of Colorado business executives to address the issues of providing care to abused and neglected children, and the establishment of a nationwide purchasing cooperative for non-profits. Other previous experience included serving as the Director of the Master of Health Systems Program and Associate Dean of University College at the University of Denver, and senior management positions at Mount Airy Psychiatric Center in Denver, Colorado.
Dr. Talbot has been a featured speaker at a number of national and state venues, and is the former publisher and editor of Today’s Healthcare Manager, a newsletter focusing on leadership and management skills for healthcare managers, and has written numerous articles, manuals, and book chapters.
Areas of focus for consultation and training include strategic planning, the development of successful strategic alliances, board development, organizational reengineering, operations management, management and leadership development, and change management.