About Marylou Sudders
Marylou Sudders is currently a senior policy advisor at Smith, Costello & Crawford, a Massachusetts based consulting practice. She was also appointed in 2023 to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s Ad hoc Committee to Improve Behavioral Health Care in Medicaid, Medicare and Marketplace Plans.
With more than 25 years of public service, Sudders served as Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the entirety of Governor Baker’s eight-year term, from 2015-2023. As the Commonwealth’s longest-serving Secretary, Sudders oversaw 12 state agencies and the MassHealth program, with a budget of over $27 billion and 22,000 public employees, leading programs that provide treatment, care, and support to one in every three Massachusetts residents. Her accomplishments include overhauling Medicaid into a population-based health program, negotiating two multi-billion-dollar Medicaid demonstration waivers, instituting systemic child welfare reforms, spearheading significant investments in behavioral health, including the Behavioral Health RoadMap, implementing a multi-million-dollar loan repayment program for health and human service workers, and resolving two longstanding judicial consent decrees involving children’s mental health and acquired brain injury services. Sudders chaired the state’s multi-million-dollar Opioid Remediation Fund, co-chaired the state’s first statewide council on Aging, and served on the Commonwealth’s Health Policy Commission as an inaugural member. As chair of the state’s health insurance marketplace, she led its turnaround from national worst performer to best in class.
Sudders directed the state’s response to COVID-19, earning the Commonwealth Fund’s highest performance among all states and territories in its 2022 Scorecard along with Hawaii.
During her tenure, Massachusetts achieved and maintained the highest or amongst the highest in numerous national state rankings including as overall healthiest state, for prenatal and maternal care access, for mental health care and access, in child well-being, as age friendly, for long term services and supports for older adults and individuals with disabilities, and with the highest rate of insurance coverage.
Sudders is a social worker committed to the health and well-being of all residents, committed to equity and the reform of behavioral health care. Sudders has been a highly impactful leader in both the public and private sectors, including serving as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Mental Health, a non-profit CEO, associate professor and program chair at Boston College’s School of Social Work, and as an independent consultant with the Department of Justice.
Sudders holds a bachelor’s degree with honors and a master’s degree in social work from Boston University, and honorary doctorates from Boston University, the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, and Bridgewater State University. She is the recipient of many civic, social work, and professional honors.
Berry IOP Fellows Welcome Reception
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