Crystal Blyler's work focuses on improving services, policies, and well-being of people with behavioral health conditions and disabilities.
Blyler has over 20 years of experience implementing and evaluating behavioral health services, systems, and policy. At Mathematica, she has provided senior leadership and advisement for diverse projects regarding the evaluation of inpatient and community-based behavioral health services, disability and employment support services and policies, evidence-based practices, and behavioral health quality measures. She directed the evaluation of the ACA-mandated Medicaid Emergency Psychiatric Services Demonstration (MEPD), which examined the effect of allowing federal Medicaid payments for inpatient stays in private psychiatric hospitals for people who were suicidal, homicidal, or dangerous to themselves or others. Other projects include the evaluation of primary and behavioral health care integration, innovative approaches for addressing behavioral health challenges among Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries, and approaches to maximizing employment potential, self-sufficiency, and well-being while reducing dependence on public benefits among people with disabilities.
Prior to joining Mathematica in 2011, Blyler was a social science analyst at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where she directed the implementation and evaluation of initiatives to improve employment outcomes, health, and well-being among people with serious mental illnesses. Her clinical experience includes serving as a research fellow for the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center at the University of Maryland; research psychologist and therapist/treatment coordinator at the CPC Health/Chestnut Lodge Hospital, Chestnut Lodge Research Institute, and Dexter M. Bullard Jr. Outpatient Mental Health Clinic; associate research scientist for Columbia University’s Department of Anesthesiology; and diagnostic interviewer at Dartmouth College/New Hampshire Hospital. She also was a member of the Human Rights Committee for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.
Blyler is widely published in a number of peer-reviewed publications including the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, American Journal of Psychiatry, British Journal of Psychiatry, and Schizophrenia Bulletin, and serves as a reviewer for Psychiatric Services, Disability and Health Journal, and Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University, where she also was a postdoctoral clinical research fellow for the Laboratory for Clinical and Experimental Psychopathology.
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