IRC Office Hours - JANUARY 2024
Learn how to organize your state for pay parity
In January, join Industry Relations Committee members Cynthia Flynn, Desiree LeFave and Rebeckah Orton to learn more about the NEW AABC Learning Collaborative for Birth Center Sustainability designed to teach birth center members how to use regional price data to negotiate equitable contracts for birth center sustainability. Plus learn how to organize your state for pay parity.
As always, bring your challenges and questions. We will brainstorm solutions together.
AABC membership is required for IRC Office Hours. Registration is free and open to all AABC members.
IRC Leaders
Cynthia Flynn, PhD, CNM, FACNM
Cynthia has extensive management experience, having served as executive director of The Birth Center, Bryn Mawr, PA; the general director of Family Health and Birth Center, Washington DC, where she negotiated the merger of the birth center with a Federally Qualified Health Center in order to provide stable financing; and founder/owner of Columbia Women’s Clinic and Birth Center, Kennewick, WA. At the national level, she is a past president of the American Association of Birth Centers (AABC), and serves on the AABC Government Affairs and Research Committees as well as the Legislative and Policy Committee of the Midwives Association of Washington State (MAWS). Additionally, she has provided consulting for organizations wishing to start, expand, sustain or replicate midwifery practices and/or birth centers in order to increase access for healthy women to a proven method of obtaining a safe delivery.
Desiree LeFave
Desiree became a midwife in 2001 and has been co-owner of Bella Vie Gentle Birth Center in Salem, Oregon since 2007. She has had the privilege of attending many hundreds of women in their births, the vast majority of which have been in birth centers. She has served as a board member for the Oregon Association of Birth Centers since it’s inception in 2014, and focuses her work for them on sustainability. Desiree also supports her sister birth centers in knowing their value, advocating for in-network relationships, and demystifying insurance contracts. At the national level, Desiree co-chairs the AABC Industry Relations Committee, and internationally she is a co-founder of MamaBaby Haiti.
Rebeckah Orton, BS, RN
Rebeckah is the owner and executive director of Astoria Birth Center & Family Medicine in Astoria Oregon. She has worked in maternal health in the capacity of a student, doula, nurse, or birth center owner over the last 14 years. She also has a strong background in research during her time managing a major parasitology laboratory in Boston. Rebeckah serves on the board of directors for the Oregon Association of Birth Centers, is on the OABC insurance repricing committee, and is a member of the IRC. She is married to her partner of 19 years and has three children.
Did you know?
AABC Members can attend IRC Office Hours for free.
For More Information:
3123 Gottschall RoadPerkiomenville, Pennsylvania 18074
United States 215.234.8068