Alicia Macklin

Alicia Macklin is a trusted advisor to a range of inpatient and outpatient behavioral health care providers, along with hospitals and health systems.  She has counseled many of California’s hospitals on unsettled areas of law, with an emphasis on compliance with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).  A former litigator with a Master of Public Health from UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, Alicia brings her unique perspective and experience to her clients’ most nuanced regulatory problems.

Alicia’s work with behavioral health providers includes advising on licensing and accreditation, Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursement, federal and state privacy and confidentiality requirements, and operational issues.  She also helps California providers navigate voluntary and involuntary treatment under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS Act).  In addition to providing guidance and counsel on current legal issues, Alicia also provides her clients with insights into broader behavioral health policy trends that could affect them in the future, including both federal and state-level initiatives to reform behavioral health care. 

For her hospital and health system clients, Alicia similarly advises on a broad range of compliance, reimbursement, and operational issues, including those involving behavioral health treatment.  She specializes in EMTALA, and her work with hospitals in this space involves reviewing and revising EMTALA policies, providing in-service education for physicians and staff, managing investigations and surveys, and advising on EMTALA’s intersection with state laws, including state involuntary civil commitment laws.  In addition, Alicia has litigated appeals challenging administrative and reimbursement actions for her hospital and health system clients in a number of federal courts and the California Superior Court.  

Alicia also works with her clients to operationalize changes to the state scope of practice for various allied health professionals.  In particular, she counsels hospitals on medical staff issues, including drafting policies and advising on supervision requirements for allied health professionals, and privacy and confidentiality issues arising during investigations into physician behavior and peer review proceedings.    

Alicia has a deep commitment to issues affecting health equity and public health education.  She has studied, written, and presented in this area for nearly a decade, first as a student earning her Master of Public Health, and now as a practicing healthcare attorney and lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health, where she co-teaches Legal Environment of Health Services Management.