DiscoveryMD Leadership Team

Meet Our Team Who Is Helping Bring Access to Psychiatric Treatments

PJ Van Ness

President, PPS Division

PJ is the president of the professional psychiatric services (PPS) division of Discovery Behavioral Health. The PPS division includes DiscoveryMD, Anew TMS & Psychiatry and AwakeningsKC, which has facilities across the United States. PJ has worked at Discovery Behavioral Health in various capacities, including director of admissions, vice president of admission and vice president of growth. Prior to Discovery, PJ started working in the behavioral healthcare field at a center for adults in substance use disorder treatment. It was there that PJ grew a passion for helping those with co-occurring mental health, substance use and eating disorders. He sees it as a privilege to provide patients and their families access to quality care. To PJ, this was especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic when the organization saw an incredible need for extending telehealth services, which is a hallmark service of the PPS division. Since then, PJ has watched in awe of how the industry moved from in-person residential to the emerging telehealth space, quickly becoming a huge growth opportunity for the organization, as well as him as a leader in this space. When PJ is not helping innovate the psychiatric services space, he enjoys spending time surfing and boating with his wife and young children on the coast of Southern California.

Matthew Ruble, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Matthew Ruble is the Chief Medical Officer of Discovery Behavioral Health. Dr. Ruble has a deep passion for advancing the behavioral health industry through training, publication, innovation, payer relations and collaboration. He spent 20 years of his career working with the Cambridge Health Alliance, a health system affiliated with Harvard Medical School, responsible for training clinicians, residents and medical staff in core evidence-based practices including:

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Psychiatric curriculum development
Research
Publications
Speaking nationally on evidence-based practices
Integrated behavioral and physical health care delivery

As Lead Medical Director overseeing Clinical Behavioral Health Strategy and Operations for Humana, he was part of the team that reviewed and advised on all behavioral health technology innovations for investment and implementation. His expertise spans consistent delivery of innovative and value-based, industry-leading, and integrated behavioral health programs and services.

Dr. Ruble earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. From there, he attended the Carver School of Medicine at the University of Iowa, earning his Doctor of Medicine degree. He then attended Harvard Medical School in Boston to intern at the Department of Medicine and became a resident at the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Ruble became Chief Resident of the Psychopharmacology at Cambridge Health Alliance as well as a physician educator at the Academy at Harvard Medical School.

Monika Valentine

President of Discovery Medical Services

Monika is a results-oriented senior executive with a proven track record of providing operations solutions for a number of corporations. She has successfully helped turn around and leveraged her experience to promote efficiency across business and healthcare operations. Monika is highly effective at conceptualizing and implementing processes and improvements to programs from the ground up to position firms for market growth. Before becoming president of Discovery Medical Services, Monika was director of regional and workers’ compensation consulting at The Redwoods Group/A Crum Forster Company in North Carolina; executive director/CEO of OccMed Colorado; executive director/CEO at OCCOLV, LLC, in Colorado; and director of occupational medicine and specialty practices at HealthOne Clinic Services, LLC, also in Colorado. Monika is a student of learning; she earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration, MBA and post-graduate certification in HR at Villanova, and is currently attending the Vanderbilt University Leadership Excellence Certificate program. Her pursuit is a PhD in human capital. When she isn’t working, Monika and her husband Jeff have a private nonprofit, The Valentine Foundation, Inc. Their philanthropy work supports various organizations like Mile High-RETAC, which provide placement of AEDs in underserved communities and making CPR training available in places where resources are limited.