Dr. Sergio Huerta II has built his career connecting community care, academic medicine, and the public and private systems that serve New Mexicans with substance use disorders, closing the gaps that can leave patients without continuous care. He earned his bachelor's degree in microbiology from New Mexico State University and his medical degree from the UNM School of Medicine in 2011, then completed his internal medicine residency and served as Chief Resident at UNM. He is board-certified in both internal medicine and addiction medicine.
As Chief Medical Officer for the Western Region of BayMark Health Services Opioid Treatment Programs, Dr. Huerta oversees clinical care across more than 60 outpatient treatment programs and has advanced new approaches that expand access to addiction treatment throughout the western United States. He also serves as Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at UNM, where he helped establish and serves as Medical Director of CAMINOS (Coordinating Addiction Medicine with Inpatient and Outpatient Services), the hospital's first multidisciplinary inpatient addiction medicine consultation service. CAMINOS helps hospitalized patients begin treatment and connects them with ongoing care after discharge. Building on this work, he has helped create partnerships between UNM Hospital and community providers, including outpatient addiction treatment clinics and skilled nursing facilities, so that patients can maintain treatment as their care needs and settings change.
His partnerships extend across New Mexico. As Co-Director of Clinical Implementation for the New Mexico Bridge, he helps train clinicians in hospitals and emergency departments across the state to expand access to medications for opioid use disorder. He provides statewide addiction consultation through the New Mexico Poison Center and teaches community clinicians and judicial professionals through UNM's ECHO programs. He has also advocated before the New Mexico Legislature for access to addiction treatment in correctional facilities. Nationally, he has contributed to multicenter addiction treatment trials, including the START study published in जामा आंतरिक चिकित्सा, and serves on the American Society of Addiction Medicine's National Opioid Use Disorder Treatment Guideline Committee.
Education has been central to his work. Dr. Huerta co-founded and co-directed the UNM Quality Improvement Practicum, bringing medical students, residents and faculty together on projects that improved patient care. He teaches in the UNM Addiction Medicine Fellowship and has mentored colleagues to board certification in addiction medicine, strengthening the state's addiction care workforce.
Through these partnerships, Dr. Huerta carries the School of Medicine's mission beyond the university, translating education and innovation into broader access to care and stronger continuity of treatment for New Mexicans.