2023 NABH Annual Meeting Starts Monday!
We’re pleased to devote this week’s edition of
CEO Update to details about the 2023 Annual Meeting that starts on Monday, June 12 in Washington, D.C.
This year’s Annual Meeting celebrates two important milestones for NABH: the association’s 90
th anniversary and the 15
th anniversary of the
Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). We’re eager to remind our members of the many ways the behavioral healthcare community has helped change the U.S. healthcare system, and, in turn, helped improve and save lives in the last nine decades.
Mostly, though, we’re looking ahead. This year’s Annual Meeting theme –
Securing the Promise of Parity – is a call to action for the work that remains to ensure MHPAEA is implemented fully and fairly.
NABH is pleased to welcome HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, J.D. on Monday, and you also won’t want to miss our parity panel with NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin, U.S. Labor Department Assistant Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa Gomez, and former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), founder of The Kennedy Forum, on Tuesday. We’ll conclude our meeting on Wednesday with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who will address attendees at this year’s policy breakfast. Details about these and other sessions and events follow below.
To prepare for the meeting, view our
preliminary program, learn more about this year’s
speakers, and see our list of
exhibitors and sponsors.
Be Sure to Access the 2023 NABH Annual Meeting Mobile App
Again this year, attendees will have access to all Annual Meeting programming and materials through NABH’s online mobile app.
On Monday, June 12, NABH will send all attendees an Annual Meeting alert with a link to the app that will display important details about sessions, events, exhibitors and sponsors, our 2023 advocacy priorities, restaurant recommendations in the Washington area, and more.
Attendees can also access the link through a QR code near the Registration Desk at the meeting.
HHS Secretary Becerra to Kick Off Annual Meeting
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, the 25
th secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and the first Latino to hold that office, will open this year’s Annual Meeting on Monday, June 12 at 2:15 p.m. in the Salamander hotel’s Grand Ballroom.
Secretary Becerra will offer brief remarks and then engage in a question-and-answer session with 2023 NABH Board Chair Harsh Trivedi, M.D., M.B.A., president and CEO of Sheppard Pratt.
Previously Secretary Becerra was California’s attorney general and before that served for 12 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was the first Latino to serve as a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. He also served as chairman of his party’s caucus and as the ranking member of both the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health and Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security.
Please join us in welcoming him and be sure to stay for additional remarks from NABH Board Chair Trivedi, who will introduce a brief video commemorating our 90 years as an advocacy association.
Monday’s General Sessions to Examine Workforce Challenges and Potential Solutions
Following Monday’s opening session, NABH will present back-to-back sessions that will examine current behavioral healthcare workforce challenges and how to address them.
At 3 p.m., NABH will welcome John Pallasch, former Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for employment and training at the U.S. Labor Department (DOL) and the founder and CEO of One Workforce Solutions, a workforce consultancy in Aiken, S.C. He served previously as executive director of Kentucky’s Office of Employment and Training, and—in his first stint at DOL—as deputy assistant secretary in the department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Pallasch has spent more than 20 years influencing organizational personnel, efficiency, and productivity in the public and private sectors. He will draw from those experiences to help NABH members think more critically about their workforce challenges and more creatively about how to solve them.
Following Pallasch’s presentation, the NABH Education and Research Foundation will lead a panel discussion about workforce challenges and potential solutions at 4 p.m. ET.
New Season/Colonial Management Group CEO Jim Shaheen, the foundation’s vice president, will moderate the hourlong panel that will feature Hackensack Meridian Health Carrier Clinic President Donald Parker, the foundation’s president; Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics President Mary Pawlikowski, the foundation’s secretary; and Susan Wright, director of BayCare Behavioral Health’s Behavioral Health Operations and this year’s Annual Meeting program chair.
Panelists will discuss best practices on a variety of topics and answer questions from Shaheen and audience members. Earlier presenter John Pallasch will also participate in the panel’s question-and answer period.
Please join us for both sessions in the Salamander’s Grand Ballroom.
Tuesday’s Parity Panel to Feature DOL Official Lisa Gomez and Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy on Tuesday, June 13
NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin will moderate a parity panel discussion with Lisa Gomez, assistant secretary for employee benefits security at the U.S. Labor Department, and former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.). on Tuesday, June 13 at 9:30 a.m., the Annual Meeting’s second day.
Before she was sworn in last October, Gomez was a partner with the law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP and chair of the firm’s management committee. She has deep technical and practical experience in the field of employee benefits law and spent almost three decades representing various Taft-Hartley and multiemployer pension and welfare plans, single employer plans, jointly administered training program trust funds, a federal employees health benefit plan, and other plans covering employees in a range of industries. Gomez earned her bachelor’s degree at Hofstra University and her law degree at Fordham.
Former Rep. Kennedy is the CEO of The Kennedy Forum, a not-for-profit he founded in 2013 to unite advocates, business leaders, and government agencies to advance evidence-based practices, policies, and programming mental health and addiction. During his time in Congress, Kennedy was the lead author of MHPAEA
. Kennedy is also the founder of Don’tDenyMe.org, an educational campaign that empowers consumers and providers to understand parity rights and connects them to essential appeals guidance and resources; and co-founder of One Mind, an organization that pushes for greater global investment in brain research.
The panel will take place in the Grand Ballroom and will discuss the landmark 2008 parity law and the work that remains to secure the law’s promise.
Center for Medicaid & CHIP Services CMO Aditi Mallick, M.D. to Address Attendees on Tuesday
Aditi Mallick, M.D., chief medical officer at the Center for Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) Services (CMCS), will discuss her department’s mental health and substance use disorder initiatives at the 2023 Annual Meeting on Tuesday, June 13 at 11 a.m.
Dr. Mallick leads the Center’s clinical strategy and cross-center work on health equity, social determinants of health, and innovation in whole-person care among other areas. Before joining CMCS, Dr. Mallick led the COVID-19 Response Command Center for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), where she oversaw strategic and operational efforts around vaccination, testing, case investigation, and contact tracing statewide. A core focus of her COVID-19 work was ensuring equitable access and improving outcomes for historically marginalized populations.
Before her work at NCDHHS, Dr. Mallick worked closely with a range of healthcare stakeholders across the public and private sectors – including state Medicaid agencies, provider organizations, managed care organizations, and other payors – focusing on strategy, innovation, and data-driven change implementation.
Dr. Mallick continues to care for patients and brings that experience to her work at CMS. She earned her bachelor’s degree with honors from Harvard College, her medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine, and completed internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin to Address Attendees at Annual Meeting Luncheon
Please join us for this year’s Annual Meeting Luncheon on Tuesday, June 13 at noon to hear from NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin.
Coughlin will provide updates on NABH’s work and initiatives and will help prepare any attendees who will head to Capitol Hill for congressional visits following the luncheon.
This year’s Annual Meeting Luncheon will take place in the hotel’s Gallery Room.
Hill Day Returns!
For the first time since 2019, NABH is eager to welcome its members and guests back to Hill Day on
Tuesday, June 13 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. ET.
This year NABH is working with the firm Advocacy Associates to help schedule congressional meetings and briefings on Capitol Hill for interested Annual Meeting attendees during Hill Day.
NABH will help prepare interested attendees by providing materials through a mobile app. For those attending Hill Day this year: please look for additional correspondence on Friday, June 9.
Also, Hill Day participants—and all Annual Meeting attendees—can review the association’s
2023 Advocacy Priorities and Contingency Management fact
sheet before or during the Annual Meeting.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy to Address Attendees at Annual Meeting Policy Breakfast
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) will address attendees at the 2023 Annual Meeting policy breakfast on Wednesday, June 14 at 9:30 a.m. ET.
Sen. Murphy serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and the Appropriations Committee. Before he was elected to the Senate, Sen. Murphy represented Connecticut’s fifth congressional district for three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Murphy is known in Congress as a leading voice for stronger anti-gun violence measures, a smarter foreign policy, and reform of our nation’s mental health system.
Before he was elected to Congress, Murphy served for eight years in the Connecticut state legislature. Murphy graduated with honors from Williams College in Massachusetts and received his law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. Please help us welcome Sen. Murphy on Wednesday.
The NABH team wishes everyone a safe trip to Washington, and we look forward to seeing you soon!
For questions or comments about this CEO Update, please contact Jessica Zigmond