Behavioral Health: Dr. Michael Miller
Director
Herrington Recovery Center – Rogers Memorial Hospital
Dr. Michael Miller has been practicing addiction medicine for more than 30 years.
He now serves as medical director of the Herrington Recovery Center at Rogers Memorial Hospital in Oconomowoc, and devotes his time and expertise to providing exceptional comprehensive behavioral health care for people suffering from addiction.
The Herrington Recovery Center is named after Dr. Roland Herrington, a former teacher of Miller’s. It is a residential treatment program for patients with addiction that has been in operation for decades, Miller said.
“Dr. Herrington was well-known for treating health care professionals suffering from addiction problems,” Miller said. “We’ve revised the program today to meet the needs of people living with a dual diagnosis.”
Programming today is centered on addiction recovery, but also focuses on mood disorders like anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder and social anxiety.
“Generally, our patients are with us for much longer than a traditional residential treatment facility. Less intensive services haven’t met our patients’ needs in the past,” he said.
Miller formerly chaired the Wisconsin Medical Society Commission on Addictive Diseases, and he is currently the vice speaker of WMS House of Delegates. Miller served with Herrington on the managing committee of the statewide physician health program for more than a decade.
He is also a clinical adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and regularly uses his expertise to influence behavioral health care in Wisconsin.
According to Miller, the Herrington Recovery Center gets referrals from all over the country and seeks to meet the needs of all of its patients.
Miller started practicing in psychiatry, but completed a fellowship in Minneapolis in 1982 that led him in the direction of addiction treatment.
“Addiction is a very treatable disease; it’s not any sort of hopeless condition,” he said. “I got some unique exposure to this in medical school, and I’ve seen people recover – and how grateful they are when they do. How grateful they are when they are able to function in their families and in their communities again.”
