Learning Collaborative for Birth Center Sustainability - Spring 2025

Blueprint on how to use price tranparency data to negotiate contracts


Tuesday, April 8, 2025
to Tuesday, May 27, 2025
AABC Online Learning Center

Join us for the spring session of the AABC Learning Collaborative for Birth Center Sustainability. 

This 8-week class will be offered live online via zoom on Tuesdays (April 8th - May 27th), 1:00 - 3:00pm ET.

The AABC Industry Relations Committee (IRC) has developed this learning collaborative to teach birth center members how to use regional price data to negotiate equitable contracts for birth center sustainability.

Using the collective experience and expertise of the IRC, this online class will give members a blueprint on how to use the data to negotiate contracts in line with the birth center’s value. Participants will:

  • Review best practices for anti-trust compliance
  • Create relationships and unity with other birth centers to educate and garner support from stakeholders
  • Define sustainability as it pertains to YOUR birth center
  • Understand your value and the law
  • Receive tools for effective negotiations which can be customized for your birth center
  • Apply negotiating tactics and identify realistic time frames
  • Learn to argue and win

Upon completion of the course, participants will be eligible to purchase a data report customized to their state, which includes reimbursement details by key codes, insurances, and comparatives. The data report is an additional fee and a separate link for purchasing will be made available.

All participants will be required to sign a Licensing Agreement to purchase the data report.

Course Registration Fee

  • $800 AABC Birth Center Members
  • $1855 Non-Members (includes AABC Birth Center Membership).

Save $50 for each attendee when you register 2+ people to attend. Contact AABC at 215.234.8068 or aabc@birthcenters.org to access multiple registration discount.

Data Report Fee

  • $1200/AABC Birth Center Members

Upon completion of the course, participants will be eligible to purchase a data report customized to their state, which includes reimbursement details by key codes, insurances, and comparatives.

"This is the first time that I feel empowered to negotiate with insurance with quantifiable data specific to our state, detailed presentations that are editable and shareable, key negotiation tactics and approaches to take, real time strategy that is customizable to our birth center, and the amazing support of all the presenters who are open and willing to support us in these negotiations.


"The information shared in the course has been really invaluable to our birth center. Even though I've been in my role at the birth center since 2014, it provided me with much appreciated negotiation strategies and answers to the most commonly used pushback tactics from insurance companies. I was also able to easily and quickly tailor some of the resources provided in the course specific to my birth center, and State. The powerpoint presentation has been the star of the show when presenting to various insurance companies and the leadership at the Dept of Human Services about why birth centers need to be reimbursed at a sustainable level. Buying the dataset after the class was a no brainer for me, because it FINALLY gave me a glimpse into what the hospitals are getting reimbursed for similar services. I no longer feel like I'm negotiating in the dark.

"It has taken A LOT of meetings with so many people but change is finally happening! I'm so happy and proud to share that we were able to negotiate a newborn facility fee in an MCO contract - the first in our State. This opens the door for our sister Pennsylvania birth centers to negotiate a similar structured contract, as well as push commercial payers to get with the program!

"I honestly could not have done it without the ongoing support of the faculty and other participants of the LCBCS workshop. Even two years after taking the class, they stand in my corner, willing to help talk through a strategy and bounce ideas off of. You will not regret taking this class, it really has been a game changer for us in PA."


"This is potentially so transformative for the field of midwifery, for thousands of families, and for our country! I have a new found hope!"


“The PowerPoint shared in this course has been such a valuable tool that I’ve used to ‘plug and play’ to tailor to specific payers."

Faculty

Claudia Jennings

Claudia has worked with midwives at freestanding birth centers for 6 years and is proud to have held many operational roles, most recently as the administrative director of a birth center in MN. She provides behind the scenes support to ensure midwives can provide excellent clinical care and get paid appropriately for doing so! She is passionate about the value of the freestanding birth center model and how to demonstrate it, barriers to higher payment for birth centers and midwives, and ways to create operational and billing efficiency in the birth center model.


Erica Biesinger

Erica Biesinger, MBA

Erica has been involved in the birth center community since 2014 when she joined the staff at The Midwife Center in Pittsburgh as the Finance and Operations Manager.  Since then, she's provided ongoing administrative support to the birth center including overseeing all financial aspects of the Center and helping to expand  both the facility and programs offered.  She is passionate about the independent, free-standing birth center model and the midwifery model of care. Her goal is to have that shine through in her administrative work, while improving the ongoing financial health of the birth center.

Agenda

April 8
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM Class 1: April 8th
Sustainability & Equitability Defined 
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Class 2: April 15th
Get Together, Gather Resources / Build Your Case – Part 1
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Class 3: April 22nd
Build Your Case - Part 2 / State Your Case
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Class 4: April 29th
How to Set Up Billing for Success
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Class 5: May 6th
How to Pick a Fight / Case Studies
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Class 6: May 13th
Negotiate to Win / Case Studies
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Week 7: May 20th
How to Use Your Data
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Week 8: May 27th
Bringing It All Together

Not a Birth Center Member?
Join Now

For More Information:

American Association Of Birth Centers Logo 3123 Gottschall Road
Perkiomenville, Pennsylvania 18074
United States
215.234.8068