Medical Director
Pelago
Dr. Justin Yang is the Medical Director for Pelago, the world’s first technology-enabled digital clinic for substance use management. Dr. Yang leads the Pelago clinical team in their efforts to help over 100 million people overcome their addictions.
Dr. Yang is a Harvard-trained, triple-board certified physician, bringing more than a decade of academic, industry, research, and clinical leadership experience to Pelago. Dr. Yang is also an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine and an Assistant Professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Earlier in Dr Yang’s career, he was the Medical Director of an award winning Medication-Assisted Treatment program at a health center in Boston, leading clinicians across 7 clinics in helping patients recover from their substance use disorder.
Dr. Yang not only specializes in addiction medicine, he also specializes in employee health and wellness, a field of study he spent the last decade working on at Harvard with many high-impact studies published in journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical Journal. Dr. Yang joined Pelago to lead the clinical team and provide evidence-based, high-quality care to members across the nation.
Substance misuse is affecting employees across industries at unprecedented levels, and employers are under increasing pressure to offer benefits that go beyond traditional EAPs. This session examines modern approaches to substance abuse benefits, including virtual treatment models, medication-assisted therapies, peer support systems, and more nuanced step-care frameworks.
This discussion will explore how to reduce stigma, improve engagement with recovery resources, and measure program effectiveness over time.
Attendees will leave with a clearer sense of what a next-generation substance abuse benefits program looks like—and how to design one that supports both employee well-being and organizational resilience.