About
With nearly three decades in nursing and almost 20 years specializing in addiction and mental health, Erika is one of a rare few professionals in the country who combines frontline clinical expertise, executive nursing leadership, and independent practice in addiction care. She is a Certified Addiction Registered Nurse (CARN) — an ASAM-endorsed designation credentialed by the International Nurses Society on Addictions and the Addiction Nursing Certification Board — and holds Registered Professional Nursing licenses in both New York and New Jersey.
Erika's career spans the full spectrum of addiction treatment settings: methadone clinics, inpatient detox and residential treatment programs, outpatient programs, harm reduction centers, hospital-based addiction treatment programs as well as long-term care, hospice, primary care, and inpatient psychiatry. She has opened and managed addiction treatment centers in both New York and New Jersey. She currently serves as a Director of Nursing in the New York metropolitan area, bringing active, real-world experience to every facility partnership.
Her clinical depth is matched by her operational and regulatory expertise. She understands regulatory compliance not as a checklist but as a living practice — having guided facilities through state, federal, and accreditation requirements including The Joint Commission, CARF, SAMHSA, and DEA standards for narcotic treatment programs. That same hands-on expertise extends across insurance authorization and appeals, nursing documentation supporting medical necessity, medication-assisted treatment (MAT), harm reduction, ASAM levels of care, diversion prevention, quality assurance, policy development, and staff retention and education.
Beyond the clinical, Erika brings breadth that few in her field can match. Her areas of experience include insurance authorization and appeals, nursing documentation that supports medical necessity, MAT (medication-assisted treatment), harm reduction, ASAM levels of care, diversion prevention, quality assurance, policy development, and nursing staff retention and education. She is also experienced in trauma-informed care, infectious disease management, women's health, sexual health, and gender-affirming care — bringing an inclusive, patient-centered lens to every system she works within. A published researcher and former Institutional Review Board member, she has served as Principal Investigator on a SAMHSA-funded Street Medicine pilot program. She also brings working familiarity with electronic medical record systems — including KIPU, Epic, Meditech, and methadone dispensing platforms.
A recognized voice in addiction medicine nationally and internationally, Erika has presented on clinical best practices for Hepatitis C elimination and harm reduction at the Hepatitis C Elimination Symposium at Seton Hall Law School, spoken on cannabis and recovery at the national 420 Expo, and was a featured panel speaker addressing an international audience on substance use and men's mental health for a UK based mental health program.
Facilities that work with Erika gain more than a skilled clinician — they gain a trusted partner who has lived the clinical, regulatory, and financial pressures of addiction treatment from every angle, and knows exactly how to address them.
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