John E Gobble, DrPH, RD, LD, CHES
and the MNT Assistant™

On January 1, 2002, Medicare began paying RDs for Medical Nutrition Therapy (MNT). February 2002 John E. Gobble, author and developer of technical and educational solutions for health behavior change and lifestyle interventionist, began the planning of his own MNT private practice Medical Nutrition Therapy Northwest.

John E. Gobble, DrPH, RD, LD, CHES, earnedis a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) in Preventive Care and a Master of Public Health (MPH) in both Public Health Nutrition and Health Education from Loma Linda University School of Public Health. He received his Doctor and Master of Public Health degrees from the Loma Linda University School of Public Health. He is a Registered Dietitian (RD), a State of Oregon Licensed Dietitian (LD) in the state of Oregon, a Certified Health Education Specialistt (CHES), a cCertified Health and /Fitness sSpecialist by the American College of Sports Medicine, and Certified Intrinsic Coach®. John has written and developed various technical and educational solutions for health behavior change and is a lifestyle interventionist.

In February 2002, John started his own MNT private practice. After attending an ADA seminar on Medicare reimbursement, Dr. Gobble started developing a solution for tackling the mountain of data he learned was expected of RDs to manage. The reality soon sank in that if RDs were to have a successful and profitable private practice they needed to minimize paperwork required to follow the evidence based guidelines and still maximize the number and quality of MNT encounters. Within 6 months Dr. Gobble completed the first version of the MNT Assistant^TM.

Ever since he released the MNT Assistant^TM, John has continuously improved it by adding new features, tools and capabilities. For example, the MNT AssistantTM makes it possible to follow the Nutrition Care Process soon after it was published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 2003. Furthermore, the MNT Assistant allows convenient communication of the dietitians’ therapeutic process to the rest of the healthcare team.

Manuel Villacorta, MS, RD, CSSD, owner of MV Nutrition, was one of the early users of the MNT AssistantTM and he has taken full advantage of its many capabilities. As his private practice grew, his reliance on the MNT AssistantTM has never wavered. Manuel has created a number of tracking strategies for monitoring eating habits and physical activity. It did not take long before Manuel and John realized that they can combine their respective tools and intervention strategies into a complete and effective product, the MV Professional Nutrition Suite. In this highly competitive healthcare market, dietitians need the resources and tools provided by MV Professional Nutrition Suite to effectively run their own MNT private practice.