Douglas Metz's Email & Phone

As chief health services officer and executive vice president at American Specialty Health (ASH), Dr. Douglas Metz oversees health services and outcomes research, clinical quality management, wellness quality assurance, health affairs, and health guidelines and policy functions of the organization. Dr. Metz has been instrumental in supporting the development of numerous new products, research activities, and evidence-based quality initiatives at American Specialty Health, and has been the lead health professional supporting the development of the company's Healthyroads wellness and fitness programs. Dr Metz has served in a senior clinical management role at American Specialty Health for more than 15 years. Dr. Metz is chairman of the Health Standards Committee and the Wellness Standards Development Committee of the national accreditation organization, URAC. He also participates on the Outcomes Measurement Committee of the Disease Management Association of America and the Chief Medical Officer's Committee of AHIP, the national insurance association. Prior to working with American Specialty Health, Dr. Metz was the first chiropractic physician to be hired to serve as a national medical director for Aetna Health Plans, a full service health plan. In that role, he was responsible for the company's national chiropractic and physical medicine managed care initiatives within the employee benefits, workers' compensation, and personal injury insurance lines of business. Dr. Metz's focus on quality improvement led a 13-year quality improvement initiative which resulted in reductions in the number of back pain-related radiological examinations by network doctors from 78 percent to nine percent. The initiative won a prestigious URAC Best Practices in Consumer Empowerment and Protection award in 2008. Dr. Metz has published a number of papers related to health and productivity management and managed care. Dr. Metz is a frequent speaker on many topics related to managed care, quality management, and wellness, and he has contributed to textbooks and scientific articles including: "Health and Medical Economics Applied to Integrative Medicine," Institute of Medicine (2009); "Healthy Employees; Healthy Business," Nolo Press (2009); "Supplement Health Insurance: Meeting Today's Needs," AHIP Press (2009); and articles published in the Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine (2008), American Journal of Health Promotion (2007), Archives of Internal Medicine (2004), Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine (2004). Dr. Metz graduated from the National College of Chiropractic, Lombard, Ill., where he received a bachelor of science degree in biology and a doctor of chiropractic degree.