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What Can You Do with a Doctorate in Behavioral Health?
Discover the many administrative and strategic leadership career pathways in behavioral health you can pursue with a Doctor of Behavioral Health (DBH).
As healthcare shifts toward more integrated care, systems need leaders who understand the mind-body connection and can bridge medicine and mental health. Unlike traditional PhD or PsyD programs focused on research, individual psychology, or traditional therapy, a Doctorate in Behavioral Health (DBH) prepares post-master’s professionals with practical skills in these areas: integrated clinical care, healthcare entrepreneurship, population health analytics, quality improvement, and executive leadership.
A DBH is a doctoral degree that is different from an EdD or a science research degree. While a bachelor's degree lays the foundation and a master's provides initial clinical training, a DBH prepares you for opportunities in high-paying administrative and strategic leadership roles.
Here are 11 jobs you can get with a Doctorate in Behavioral Health:
1. Director of Behavioral Health
- What they do: Oversee behavioral health programs across healthcare organizations, mental health facilities, and community health centers. Behavioral health directors play a key role in strategic planning, clinical operations, budget allocation, and regulatory compliance to ensure behavioral health goals align with broader health system operations. They often work closely with psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and medical teams.
- Where they work: Behavioral directors can work in health systems, regional or academic hospitals, integrated healthcare networks, health insurance companies, and state or local health departments.
2. Behavioral Health Program Director
- What they do: Drive high-level strategic growth, grant procurement, program design, and fiscal oversight for specialized behavioral health service lines. Rather than managing daily patient schedules or direct therapy, behavioral health program directors focus on long-term funding sustainability, interdisciplinary integration, and clinical outcome metrics for targeted initiatives like outpatient addiction treatment or youth crisis services.
- Where they work: Program directors can pursue jobs in community mental health centers (CMHCs), outpatient addiction treatment facilities, specialized youth crisis centers, and non-profit human services agencies.
3. Clinical Services Director
- What they do: Manage the clinical operations of a healthcare organization. Responsibilities include overseeing patient care delivery, supervising clinical staff, allocating resources, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Clinical services directors optimize clinic workflows and patient access. In addition, they may maintain a clinical caseload and provide mental health and therapy services to a limited number of clients.
- Where they work: Clinical directors can work in multi-specialty outpatient clinics, rehabilitation centers, multi-site healthcare organizations, and large behavioral health systems.
4. Integrated Care Management Manager
- What they do: Lead interdisciplinary teams that coordinate physical, mental, and social care for complex patient populations, including adults with chronic medical conditions who are mentally or physically ill. Integrated care managers also oversee daily care operations – including discharge planning, staff supervision, and onboarding – to streamline transitions between hospital and outpatient settings and provide efficient, cost-effective care.
- Where they work: Integrated care managers can find employment in managed care organizations (MCOs), health insurance companies, hospital systems, and accountable care organizations (ACOs).
5. Behavioral Health Consultant
- What they do: Provide direct client services including lifestyle modification coaching, mindfulness practices, behavioral assessments, and health education. Following a physician referral for specific conditions (e.g., depression or stress management), behavioral health consultants develop individualized behavioral modification plans for patients to improve long-term health habits and overall well-being.
- Where they work: Behavioral counselors can work in corporate wellness programs, occupational health clinics, private practices, community health clinics, and primary care settings.
Classes Start: September 8th
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6. Integrated Behavioral Health Consultant
- What they do: Work directly within primary care, pediatric, or specialty clinics to bridge the gap between mental and physical health care. Integrated behavioral health consultants work closely with a doctor or medical specialist across pediatric, family, geriatric, or prenatal populations to deliver behavioral interventions (such as CBT or health-habit coaching) to help patients manage chronic conditions like diabetes or chronic pain.
- Where they work: Integrated consultants normally find work in primary care clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), pediatric practices, and specialty clinics.
7. Behavioral Health Quality Manager
- What they do: Focus on quality improvement (QI), data analytics, and population health outcomes evaluation. Behavioral health quality managers monitor clinical metrics, maintain accreditation compliance, and design operational improvements that use integrated care strategies to lower care delivery costs while elevating patient care quality.
- Where they work: Quality managers work in health plan administrative offices, healthcare quality consulting firms, hospital systems, health departments, and behavioral health accreditation bodies.
8. Behavioral Health Program Manager
- What they do: Manage the day-to-day operations, staffing, and execution of specific mental health programs. Working under the strategy set by program directors, behavioral health program managers focus on frontline service delivery, maintaining weekly staff schedules, optimizing daily workflows, and ensuring services meet the immediate needs of clients and clinicians.
- Where they work: Behavioral health managers can find opportunities in hospitals, health advocacy organizations, public health agencies, and academic medical centers.
9. Behavioral Health Professor / Clinical Educator
- What they do: Instruct undergraduate, master's, or doctoral-level students in behavioral health, social work, counseling, or related fields. Behavioral health professors and clinical instructors design courses focused on integrated care practices, healthcare economics, and evidence-based interventions. They also conduct research and mentor students.
- Where they work: Behavioral health professors pursue roles in higher education (university, college, or medical school environments), teaching hospitals, or academic research institutions.
10. Chief Behavioral Health Officer / Healthcare Executive
- What they do: Serve as an executive-level authority who shapes organizational policy, health strategy, and value-based care initiatives across health systems or insurance networks. Behavioral healthcare executives bridge the gap between clinical care and medical management while driving measurable ROI and system-wide care improvements.
- Where they work: Behavioral health officers work in executive C-suites involving hospital networks, national managed care organizations, health insurance companies, and healthcare policy organizations.
11. Behavioral Health Systems Consultant
- What they do: Advise healthcare systems on how to integrate behavioral health into traditional medical frameworks, optimize employment structures, and maximize reimbursement models. As a behavioral health systems consultant, you may evaluate existing operations, train healthcare staff, and build scalable systems designed to improve population health metrics across diverse clinical settings.
- Where they work: A behavioral systems consultant can find opportunities in private consulting practices, corporate healthcare networks, and healthcare advisory firms.
Ready to Take the Next Step in Healthcare Leadership?
Earning a Doctorate in Behavioral Health prepares you to shape health strategy, influence policy, make an impact in the healthcare field, and pursue various types of roles. Are you ready to advance your career?
Take the next step in your career with Herzing University’s online Doctor of Behavioral Health (DBH) program. With both Clinical and Management tracks, Herzing offers degree programs designed to help you reach your leadership goals and drive integrated healthcare forward.
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Classes start: September 8th