In this episode, we focus our attention on recognizing the 10th anniversary of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) and the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine. The collaboration jointly released “Evaluating State Mental Health and Addiction Parity Statutes,” with 32 states receiving a failing grade for statues designed to ensure equal access to mental health and addiction treatment.
We spoke to Megan on the next steps, broke down some jargon, and defined the basics of Addiction Equity. We promote and raise awareness on how to be involved in the addiction community to garner policy change in the Southeast.
Resources:
Evaluating State Mental Health and Addiction Parity Statutes: A Technical Report
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act
YelloPain - My Vote Don't Count (A civics lesson via hip hop song)
Megan Douglas, JD is the Director of Health Policy for the National Center for Primary Care (NCPC) and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) in Atlanta, GA. Megan is a licensed attorney whose research focuses on studying how laws and policies can be used to improve health and eliminate health disparities. She has expertise in health information technology, Medicaid, primary care, behavioral health, and health equity. Megan is also the course director for the Health Policy and Advocacy rotation, offered to MSM medical students and residents, which teaches them about the policymaking process and ways to leverage clinical experience to inform policy.
Megan received her law degree from Georgia State University (GSU) College of Law, where she interned with the Supreme Court of Georgia, the Georgia Hospital Association, and the Health Law Partnership (HeLP), a medical-legal partnership assisting low-income patients of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta with legal needs that impacted their health. After graduation, Megan became a joint fellow with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute’s Health Policy Leadership Fellowship program at MSM and the Georgia Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disorders (LEND) program at GSU. Megan serves on the Advisory Council for HeLP and the Community Advisory Council for the Center for Leadership in Disability at GSU.
