Advocacy for Birth Center Access - How We Can Move Forward in State and Federal Policy
timely topic Breakout
DATE: Friday, October 13th
TIME: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
FACULTY: Jill Alliman, DNP, CNM & Debbie Jessup, CNM, PhD
This legislative update session will focus on advocacy at the state and federal levels that have impacted birth centers in recent months. The state panel will present challenges and successes to increase Medicaid reimbursement, remove the Certificate of Need requirement, and advocacy work now in process to provide access to birth center care for some of the most vulnerable populations in Alabama. The federal part of the session will be led by Debbie Jessup, PhD, CNM, who worked on the Hill for 18 years to improve the quality and access to care for childbearing people and infants, and works with AABC as our federal advocate.
Attend this session to learn more about how you can support improved access and better laws and regulations for childbearing people and families and how you can take action to be a part of reducing barriers for birth centers.
Faculty
Jill Alliman, DNP, CNM, FACNM
A Past President of AABC, Jill has served on the Government Affairs Committee since 2009. From 2013 - 2017, Jill was the Project Director of the AABC Strong Start project. She has participated in publishing research from Strong Start data and the Perinatal Data Registry since 2017 to help disseminate knowledge about birth centers. As Government Affairs Committee (GAC) chairperson, Jill has worked with the committee to improve state and federal laws and regulations to better support birth centers in the US. During recent years with GAC and member support, birth centers have been added to Medicaid statute as mandated covered providers (2009), CMS has published Guidance to States (2016) about including birth centers in Medicaid and published Strong Start Guidance to states (2018). Ongoing work includes the BABIES Act and Midwives for MOMS legislation, which are gaining support in Congress every day.
Debbie Jessup, PhD, CNM, FACNM
As President and Founder of Sage Femme Strategies and Senior Advisor to Wheat Shroyer Government Relations, Debbie brings 40 years of experience in nursing, midwifery, women’s health, and health policy to help her clients navigate the legislative and appropriations processes and develop organizational policy strategy. She holds the distinction of being the only Midwife to have ever worked in Congress, and the longest tenured Nurse to serve as a staffer in Congress.
Moira Tannenbaum, MSN, CNM, IBCLC, RNC-LRN, LCCE
Moira is an experienced nurse-midwife with 25 years' professional clinical experience in healthcare systems. She advocates at the state level for advanced practice registered nurse (APRN) full practice authority; prescriptive authority; removal of certificate of need for birth centers; certified professional midwife licensure. At the University of Michigan-Flint, she serves as clinical faculty for undergraduate nursing students in maternity rotations. At the national level, Moira serves on the AABC Government Affairs Committee and on the ACNM State Government Affairs Committee. At the state level, she is the Legislative Co-Chair of the ACNM Michigan Affiliate and Co-Treasurer of the ACNM West Virginia Affiliate.
