Grow Midwives (GM), LLC in Review – 2022
Grow Midwives (GM) consulting formed in 2017 to address persisting barriers that challenge sustaining and scaling up the midwifery profession. Core to GM values is the belief that midwives are essential, licensed healthcare professionals that are highly educated and trained to provide essential services that should be promoted to consumers, valued by payers, and seamlessly integrated with healthcare models across the US.
In 2022, GM demonstrated our most productive year yet working not only with individual midwives but with larger entities seeking to gain an understanding or integration of midwifery within new or existing models of care.
During this busy year over 500 requests for information on a variety of services were received, averaging 41 requests/month. Over 300 clients received formal guidance from a member of our team. Services provided ranged from: contract review; post-contract coaching; 1:1 coaching on professional issues; resume review/editing; negotiation strategy advising on salary, compensation, and scaling up of midwife practice; ACNM Affiliate retreats; midwife practice strategic planning retreats; assisting midwives wanting to start a variety of practice types or birth center; assisting health systems launch midwifery services; 2 feasibility studies to assess birth center development; and, multiple users of the Proforma for Midwifery Start Ups© to aid in fiscal analysis for business development.
Perhaps the most exciting part of our work is helping individual midwives. Many new and seasoned practitioners have learned how to better understand and negotiate professional issues eg. noncompetes, salary and benefits, malpractice insurance needs, defined work, and much more – all leading to improved employment relationships and in many cases increasing their salary and other benefits by thousands of dollars annually.
Grow Midwives made significant financial investment in the production of two key legal research papers to aid the professions understanding around Incident To Billing and an updated edition of the White Paper on Vicarious Liability. Both can be purchased for a nominal fee in the website store.
Two Independent Consultants joined to assist in broadening expert services. Dr. John Yeast, MD, MSPH, MFM worked alongside GM on three projects with large health systems to scale up midwifery practice. Dr. Kathy Camacho Carr, Ph.D., CNM assisted with the pre-accreditation process for Loyola School of Nursing in New Orleans. GM also consulted with the University of Alabama, Birmingham, School of Nursing that was notified in Feb ‘22 of their pre-accreditation approval. GM continues to provide consultative services for UAB midwifery curricular development. Two additional universities are in discussion with GM regarding new midwifery programs in 2023.
GM launched a Round Table Series for 25 selected Midwifery Service Directors in January. During the six-month series, one evening a month was co-hosted by a national expert to discuss current topics that influence sustaining and scaling up midwifery services. Guest hosts included: Dr. John Jennings, Dr. Neel Shah, Joseph Booth (GM counsel), Dr. Amber Price, and Dr. Ginger Breedlove. Two SNMs were awarded 100% of the participant’s fee, equaling $1500 each for the role as student interns. A second Round Table Series for New Midwives (out 1-5 years) will launch in January 2023 with Yuliya Labko, CNM, MSN serving as the primary host on behalf of GM. A panel of experts has been identified to co-host on issues facing new midwives in the profession.
Members of the GM team were invited to speak at over 10 national events ranging from the American Association of Birth Centers annual meeting, the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) annual meeting, ACNM Midwifery Works conference, academic center Medical Grand Rounds, ACNM affiliate conferences, midwifery program guest lectures, and other professional organizational meetings.
During 2022, Grow Midwives identified an urgent need for midwives education around and assistance with billing, coding, and practice compliance. Existing clients confirmed a desire for a midwifery billing service that brought excellence in business skills and a dedicated personal focus. With the help and expert knowledge of GM’s new partner, Arden Schwenker, a decision was made to launch a subsidiary business – a billing service. GM Billing & Recovery Solutions was designed for providers and their patients in a user-friendly model to streamline the process in order to make billing work for everyone. Our solutions range from training your in-house staff to becoming your remote billing service. We are proud to offer these services to practices that range from solo practitioner to multi-specialty, large organizations.
Grow Midwives, LLC and GM Billing & Recovery Solutions have continued to develop as unique services to the expanding marketplace. They each are in the process of receiving international trademark designations in three areas: business consultation services; educational services; and, a new class of consulting in the field of midwifery-led care.
And finally in January of this year, we invested our trust and need for a higher level of marketing and advertising to the incredible team at Marketing TEA led by Tyler Hixson. Some of the most valued products produced include redesign of the GM website and creation of the GM Billing & Recovery Solutions website, video productions of GM team members, client experiences, and robust marketing and social media production.
Thank you to all of our clients, colleagues, friends, and followers that support GM’s work. And we promise for 2023 that while we know there is a tremendous amount of hard work still ahead to mainstream midwifery, we will continue to commit our expertise to aid, assist and align stakeholders so as to grow a needed midwifery workforce that is both valued and recognized as essential health care providers.
Wishing you a very happy holiday season.
The Grow Midwives Team: Ginger, Joe, Lesley, Arden, and Tyler~