Edward R. Jones, Ph.D., brings more than 42 years of health care industry experience to the OPEN MINDS team. Mr. Jones is a clinical psychologist and has over 20 years of experience in executive leadership roles serving the behavioral health care industry. He joins OPEN MINDS as a Senior Associate.

Prior to joining OPEN MINDS and shifting to consulting roles, Mr. Jones was the President of the Commercial Division for ValueOptions in Norfolk, Virginia. The organization was responsible for covering over 32 million lives nationally through a variety of direct contracts with employers, regional health plans, labor and trust groups, as well as state and county agencies. They specialized in EAP services, care management for all mental health and chemical dependency diagnoses, and more. In this role, he was the responsible for all commercial business, including five service centers around the U.S. which ensured high-quality care for 16 million commercially insured members. Mr. Jones also oversaw account management for existing employer, health plan, and labor and trust accounts, as well as commercial sales and business development activities.

Prior to that, he served as the Executive Director at Summit Centers Malibu, a residential treatment center for chemically dependent adults. Mr. Jones was responsible for administration, clinical operations, and sales and marketing. While there, he developed the program’s clinical model in collaboration with addiction specialists at UCLA and the Matrix Institute on Addictions.
Before that, Mr. Jones was the Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer at PacifiCare Behavioral Health (PBH), a managed behavioral health care organization with six million members nationwide that was acquired by United Health Group in 2005. While there, he was accountable for the performance of all PBH care management centers, including accountability for service utilization, clinical quality, customer service, administrative efficiency, and compliance with NCQA and state regulatory standards. He also managed and developed a major network expansion in the eastern U.S. Mr. Jones worked on strategic planning and product development and held a leadership role in the annual enhancements of the proprietary outcomes management system.

Prior to this, Mr. Jones was Co-Owner and Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Healthcare (CBH). At CBH, he oversaw the development and management of a system of care with formal quality improvement and utilization management programs. This included risk sharing and fee-for-service contracts with payers; implementation of clinical information systems, including provider profiling of utilization and quality data for re-credentialing; and the implementation of an outcomes measurement system and patient satisfaction surveys.

Mr. Jones received his Doctorate of Philosophy majoring in Clinical Psychology at Northwestern University. He earned Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Cornell University.