Issue 147  ·  June 1, 2026  ·  The Business of Women's Health

The reimbursement conversation just moved from rooms you weren't in to one you can join today.

We built the IWH Reimbursement Summit because the field kept circling this problem without landing on it.

⭐ IWH Pro members get early access to events, salary benchmarks, and a private community of women's health professionals.  Join IWH Pro →

From the desk of Jodi

The Operating Room Went to the Shoulder. Here's Why That Has Everything to Do With You.

Last spring, a urogynecologist from the University of Pittsburgh stood before Congress and said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about.

She was explaining why women with endometriosis can't always get their surgeries scheduled. Not because there aren't surgeons trained to do the work. Not because hospitals don't have operating rooms. But because endometriosis surgery has been assigned — by the same federal system that sets Medicare reimbursement rates — a single relative value unit. One. Meanwhile, an orthopedic surgeon can do 16 shoulder surgeries in that same time and bill 16 times the amount.

"Surgical facilities are not going to want to give a surgeon who's billing one low reimbursement code an operating room for eight hours." — Dr. Jocelyn Fitzgerald, urogynecologist, UPMC, testifying before Congress, April 2025

This isn't an abstraction. This is a woman in pain, told there's no time for her. And the reason — buried three layers deep in how RVUs were originally set — is that when those values were developed, gynecologists were formally adjudicated to have "less required skill" than cardiologists or orthopedists. That judgment got baked into code. And it has been compounding ever since.

A 2025 study found that more than 100 surgical codes for procedures on female anatomy are reimbursed an average of 30% lower than comparable procedures on male anatomy. Surgery on a male urinary tract pays 35% more than surgery on a female urinary tract. Biopsying a penis brings in 45% more than biopsying a vagina. These are not different procedures in terms of complexity or training. They are the same level of skill, applied to different bodies, valued differently because of which body they're in.

I think about this constantly as I work on both sides of this problem. The reimbursement system isn't just a billing problem. It's a workforce problem. It's an access problem. And ultimately, it's a patient problem.

That congressional briefing happened in April 2025. Experts from Harvard, Northwestern, and Pittsburgh laid out exactly what needs to change and exactly how Congress could direct CMS to fix it. A year later, most of it is still waiting.

That's why today matters. The IWH Reimbursement Summit isn't another panel about the gap. It's a working session for the people in this community — practitioners, operators, founders, advocates — to get fluent in the actual mechanics and start building the organized, specific pressure the system requires. Not vague advocacy. Real leverage.

And here's why this matters for your career specifically: the professionals who understand reimbursement are the ones who get hired, get promoted, and get taken seriously at the table. Whether you're a clinician trying to understand why your practice can't grow, an operator building a business model in women's health, or someone pivoting into the industry — fluency in how money moves through this system is one of the most underrated career differentiators there is. Most people in women's health have an opinion about the gap. Very few can explain the mechanism. That's the edge.

If you're registered, I'll see you in the room. If you're not — use code IWHCOMMUNITY and join us. This is the conversation.

See you in the virtual room,

Starting today

IWH Reimbursement Summit

Three virtual working sessions — June 1, 3 & 5 — built for clinicians, founders, and operators who want to understand and act on the reimbursement landscape in women's health. No panels. No fluff. Real frameworks, real speakers, real takeaways.

Community Spotlight Recap

Inside Lucina: AI-Driven Maternal Health with Stephanie Winans

Lucina is a predictive maternal health platform — part of Unified Women's Healthcare — that pairs AI-driven intelligence with personalized care management to deliver healthier pregnancies at lower costs. Their technology identifies women at elevated risk of preterm birth, often in the first trimester, and empowers care managers to take action early. Clients include innovative health plans, Medicaid providers, and public entities across the country.

Lucina is at an inflection point: expanding beyond maternity to build an end-to-end women's health solution, doubling down on their AI + care management competencies, and actively growing the team.

Featured Roles

Roles Worth Your Attention This Week

Hand-selected from the IWH community and beyond.

Want to feature a role in IWH? Submit it here.

This vs That

The Reimbursement Double Standard, By the Numbers

Same training. Same hours. Different codes. Here's what the data actually says.

Analogous procedures. A 3x gap. Source: AAMC / Gynecologic Oncology

Source: PMC / Gynecologic Oncology, 2021  ·  AAMC

This is the problem we're unpacking in the IWH Reimbursement Summit — starting today.

We want to hear from you

What's the single biggest career barrier you've hit in women's health?

We're building out our programming for the rest of the year and we want to know where the real friction is — not what the industry assumes it is. Hit reply with your answer (one sentence is totally fine) and we'll feature a selection in a future issue.

Upcoming Events

What's Coming Up in the IWH Community

Virtual events for every stage of your women's health career.

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