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Hi, I'm Sarah Richardson, former CIO and President of the 229 Executive Development Community. Welcome to Flourish, where we delve into captivating career origin stories and spark conversations that inspire, inform, and foster community.

Join us as we explore the journeys that have shaped successful professionals and uncover the insights that can help you thrive on your career path. Thanks for joining us.

On today's episode, we are joined by Lynn Shapiro Snyder, a senior healthcare regulatory and AI compliance lawyer with over 40 years of experience at Epstein, Becker Green. Lynn is a strategic advisor to healthcare and life sciences companies, guiding them through complex regulatory reimbursement and compliance challenges.

As the founder and chair of the Women's Business Leaders of U. S. Healthcare Industry Foundation, also known as WBL, Lynnis passionate about empowering women led companies, especially in femtech and health equity. Her extensive expertise includes advising on fraud [00:01:00] enforcement, digital health, telemedicine, and AI, as well as supporting clients in navigating Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial payer systems.

With a deep commitment to inclusion and mentorship, Lynn has fostered a powerful network through WBL and has led initiatives that support women's leadership in healthcare. Today, she'll share insights from her remarkable career, her perspective from Washington, DC, and how civilians can help make an impact and causes they care about.

Lynn, welcome to the show. Sara, thank

you so much for inviting me. I'm looking forward to having this wonderful conversation with

you. I am as well, and as an almost four year member of WBL, when your universes come together and you really get to share that with the audience and help people understand the space that you live in better, it's such a powerful time to bring this conversation together, especially post election and what we're headed into.

And so I want to jump straight in, though, to your amazing background and especially what inspired you. to specialize in healthcare law and how you've seen the field evolve over the [00:02:00] years. Thank you. I

always remember people by their personal stories. all four grandparents were immigrants and one of them landed a job as a kid in a pharmacy in Brooklyn.

He became a pharmacist by apprenticeship. my father was a pharmacist. I grew up in a pharmacy. And then when Medicare was passed, we sold the pharmacy, went into home medical equipment. So I did Medicare claims in high school and an HMO feasibility study in college, went to DC because that's where all the health laws were coming from, to be a health lawyer, everything but malpractice.

And the business side of healthcare. Found Stephen Epstein, the firm was about 10 years old or less. And we were about 20 lawyers. I thought I'd go for two years and do something else. I didn't know you could do something else in a law firm. And this September was my 45th anniversary at Epstein Becker.

It's been an incredible ride, and I'm still having so much [00:03:00] fun with health law.

That's amazing 45 years and so much has changed. And I bet. So much has also stayed the same. So when you think about some of the key moments or decisions in your career that shaped your path in law and healthcare, what have been the things that have stood out to you over these literally four plus decades of service?

Especially being what I call inside the beltway, I've gone through what I call the cycle of health law policy, which is innovation occurs, the laws don't catch up to it for a while, then when the laws come out, we have to tweak the in innovation because it has to now match the law, then that kind of slows innovation down and then people amend the law.

And I see that cycle happening over and over again, whether it's FDA regulatory or privacy or cybersecurity and health care or now with AI I, consider it a [00:04:00] deja vu when we used to have financial relationships with the anti kickback statute and we didn't have all the exceptions and the safe harbors and the whole infrastructure.

That's where we're headed with AI. So I get to use many years of experience to weigh in on today's innovation and I tell people I work at the intersection of policy, law, and the real world.

And when you think about the real world being an aspect of all of that, and you're a prominent figure in health care law, what have been some of those biggest challenges you faced in advocating for policy changes?

Also, how you've overcome them?

One of the earliest projects I had, I did, I was so naive at the time, I didn't even know that a law firm could represent a trade association. I thought my first two job offers was Epstein Becker and to work in house at a trade association. And I didn't even realize Epstein Becker was already representing.

At that time it was the IPA model [00:05:00] HMOs. But one of the biggest challenges is the fact that our healthcare laws are based on like 1965 and 1970 kind of infrastructure. And then we amend on top of that. When we had the Epstein Becker 50th anniversary on a notepad, I did what happened for over the 50 years.

in health law. And then under that, I put what was the things that Epstein Becker was doing at the time. So for example, I drafted the DRG legislation for the American Hospital Association, when inpatient care went to DRGs, which is a beginning of bundle payment and pay for performance, things like that.

When the drug rebate bill came in, came out for Medicaid and the pharmaceutical industry needed to know what CMS stood for because they had never had a relationship with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid. I went around to a lot of pharmaceutical companies helping them understand how to have a [00:06:00] relationship with CMS.

And then more recently this whole issue of how to bring a drug to market or a medical device with CPT codes and coding coverage and payment. There's a way to bring products to market in a way that helps people either get government pay or private pay or what I call Visa MasterCard. And that's one of the areas that I enjoy the most is this whole issue of how to help people be innovative and still be in compliance with the laws.

For those that are looking to get into this field, or those that need to understand policy better, and really have a place to interpret the things that they're hearing and seeing and reading about every day, what are some of those best resources?

It depends. I know that's a common lawyer answer, it depends, but, In healthcare first of all, we have a lot of free information on our website. You can subscribe. We [00:07:00] have a podcast as well on health law issues. Just subscribe, epglaw. com, subscribe. But also, it depends on the section of healthcare that you want to drill down on.

And I find that sometimes people only get access to information about their piece of the silo. and the more general information can actually be more valuable. If you're a privacy or cyber security person in a hospital setting, it's helpful for you to know what's going on in the health plan area because Not understanding that aspect creates a hindrance on your ability to serve your hospital system that needs to get paid by the payers.

And so sometimes just signing up for Kaiser Family Foundation is a good resource. There's different kinds of foundations that give out free information about health policy trends, [00:08:00] but also Medicare. gov has a lot of free information and HHS, you can click what topics from the federal government you want access to.

Then some of the Chamber of Commerce's or trade associations are good sources of information and personal, professional societies can keep you informed. And I'd have to check, but I think that the American Health Lawyers Association actually has a non lawyer membership

So given What you've learned in your career when you see young professionals entering health care law who aspire to make a similar impact, does it still have the same draw that it did before, or has it become so nuanced that it's actually its own specialty that you have to really focus on out of the gate?

If someone says I'm, a young professional, I'm a lawyer, I want to get involved in health care, where would you steer them now?

Interesting. We have a, attitude of putting a lot of emphasis on having [00:09:00] some healthcare industry experience, even before you go to law school, so that you have a better appreciation for the space.

And also, if you're going to specialize, you got to have a passion for it. It's hard to get up in the morning and read a new Federal Register announcement if you don't really enjoy the topic. And At EBG, we consider ourselves health regulatory geeks. We all get excited about those kinds of OIG announcements, things like that.

So I would recommend that if this is an area. even at the college level to spend some time working part time or full time with some type of health care.

It could be a doctor's office, a hospital setting, a health insurance setting. And then if you're still wanting to look at the legal side of it, then go to law school. And then we now have, it wasn't the case when I started in 76, but now some law schools actually have [00:10:00] a health law program. In the JD program, or they have it in the LLM, the post JD program where you can actually be taught Medicare and Medicaid.

Where when I was coming outta school, nobody knew what an HMO was.

And now I feel like everybody knows what an HMO is for all the right or wrong reasons in some cases. And then you founded WBL, like the whole. Women's business leaders of U. S. Healthcare Industry Foundation, better known as WBL.

What was the genesis for creating it and why has it remained such a passion for you? It's grown now, I think over 1600 members in 49 states. So if you're listening and you live in Alaska, that is the one state where we still need to recruit and I'm on the membership committee, so full disclosure when I say all that, but tell us about the genesis of WBL.

Anybody listening to this, if you're a senior, . executive, part of the executive leadership team, or vice president or higher, [00:11:00] or serve on the board of a health care life science company, or a vendor who sells to the health care industry, please take a look at WBL.

org. It's a network of senior executive women. We collaborate with each other. That's a great source. Stay current on health policy and health care, what keeps us up at night kind of health care topics. And we increase our visibility to serve on corporate boards.

So let's take a step back. So when you go to college and law school, you don't always take management courses.

And in a law firm eventually certain lawyers in the firm bubble up because they seem to know how to manage things well. And I was one of the ones that bubbled up. It was 24 years ago, I was one of the managing partners at the firm. And if you go back 24 years ago, there weren't that many women who were in a management position anywhere in healthcare. Whether it's a law [00:12:00] firm, a hospital. Insurance company. And I looked around and said, where do I go and be in the audience to continue to get educated, both from content like somebody giving a speech, but more importantly from peer to peer education, and I said, I need to find a place where I could go and continue to grow professionally, because it can be really lonely being that corner office running the shop.

I was running. wonderful male colleagues, but I wanted to find the other Lynn Snyders. So I went to a whole bunch of women's groups, and either they were senior women, but not specific to health care, or it was the hospital industry, or the lab industry, or the pharmaceutical. We were siloed, and they would have junior women in the group, which is fine, but the content was geared more [00:13:00] towards them, and in rising their career and that didn't resonate with me because I had already risen.

So I just had a bar mitzvah for my middle child, And I said, oh, I could throw a party. I could do it once a year. Everybody would fly into Washington, D. C. They always have something else they can do in D. C., visit their congressmen and senators. And I had a photographer, I had a hotel, I had things lined up, and I reached out to 60 women between December 15 and December 22 after five o'clock when their assistants were gone.

We didn't have email yet, and, Out of the 60, 40 said they would fly to Washington to support this as a steering committee, and 35 showed up, basically. And by the time they showed up, I had already surveyed them of what we all agreed on for the business plan, and I could tell what was the, 80 percent they agreed on, 20 percent we had to discuss.

They came in the night before for a [00:14:00] networking dinner. I had a phrase that I trademarked, bring your own credit card, BYOCC. Bring your own credit card, and then the next day from 11 to 4, we met another BYOCC dinner, and by, Wednesday night, we were in business. We were incorporated.

We had 75 people at the first summit. And the rest I call is history. We're up to, I think, about 1, 600 members. We have three signature events, an annual summit where we really network. We have some good executive MBA content, but I want to be in that audience because I hear things that I can take back the next week and apply to my day job.

It's really about the opportunity. to create strong cross sector personal relationships that you would have never had with your customers, your vendors, whoever they are, because you need the relationship before you have an [00:15:00] ask.

And if you don't invest time in relationship building, you're missing out on the fun side. of your work, because relationships matter.

That is the power, among so many other things about WBL is, You join a group that wants you there, that supports you, that asks those questions. How can I help you? What do you need in your career? And everybody's at a different stage. And so even for those that have the similarities, it's such a nice idea to be able to like, Oh so and so's in that city.

Let me set you up with lunch with this person. And when you reach out to the WBL network and you said, Hey, I just met Lynn as an example. And she lives in Dallas. Do you want to have lunch with her? The answer is always yes. People do not say no in WBL. And if they're not the right person, they help you find the one that is.

And for women to have that kind of structure is not common and such an impressive space to be able to grow as an executive leader, because [00:16:00] too often we are left on our own in a lot of spaces and have had to create our own paths and now we get to come together and keep paying it forward. So I can't thank you enough for creating WBL, but more importantly, being still such a force of nature inside of it.

I love being a customer. I love being a member. I just, I go to as many of the events as I can because I truly enjoy the camaraderie and I tell the women. If you reach out to somebody in our private network and they don't respond, you tell me about them. Because we're not about quantity, we're about quality.

And we used to have a much larger list when I had no dues, and we shrunk it , we made a conscious decision that it was more important to have an engaged

then a larger number that was not as engaged. , I forget what number we dropped down to, but we're already double that number.

Which is such a powerful statement in and of itself, that if you really want to be a part of it, you have to be active [00:17:00] in the association as an example, which I love as well. I need to, I want to flip over to, some DC insights because you're in the Beltway, as you have noted. And how has working in DC influenced your perspective on healthcare and law?

First of all, it's really a privilege to be a lawyer in the Washington, D. C. area. When I'm in a Starbucks in Washington, D. C., people talk my language, which is policy, law, and the real world. So the thing I've learned the most is that We're very fortunate to have such an open society that allows for the lobbying of your interest with our members of Congress.

It's actually different than other countries, where in Europe, for example, it's not always considered appropriate to be lobbying your members. Ministers on issues of importance to your company. Also, when you join a trade association, it's usually a common denominator list of issues that everybody [00:18:00] can rally around.

For example, the physician fee schedule for the Medicare program comes out every year, and organizations like the American Medical Association, it's like their number one issue, and they'll rally other physician specialty groups around it so that there is like a coalition of consent so that a Capitol Hill person gets like one message. However, Our sweet spot in terms of the kind of work that we do is when the issue of the company is more unique to that company.

And it's number 25 on the list of issues for a trade association. It's not their one or two or three issue. And so we will artificially create a coalition around a coalition is two or more companies. You could have just two companies create nice stationery and go to the hill and say, This is an issue, it's a high priority for us, and it's important for you to fix it [00:19:00] this way instead of that way.

Sometimes those issues fall under a radar screen and can get more easily fixed because they're not controversial. And sometimes they're very controversial and somebody has created a coalition on the other side fighting your issue.

What we do is we figure out what is the statement of the problem. That's the most important thing, first and foremost. Do you even have the problem? And two, is Capitol Hill the right place to get the solution or is it a federal agency?

And we're going to have a lame duck session. Those of you who may not know lame duck, that is the time period between now and the new Congress that starts in January because of the election, where certain members of Congress now will be retiring at the end of the year, and they can vote.

any way they want, with their party, against their party. It's like their last hurrah. And one of the things I've studied [00:20:00] is how many significant healthcare pieces of legislation actually get enacted during lame ducks. And then also, if you go back and look, how many controversial pieces of legislation in health care only get enacted by one extra vote.

And that makes sense politically because there's nothing that says you have to have more than one vote to get it passed and there are members of Congress who want to get re elected who will say to the president, I support what you're doing but can I get a pass on this one and vote a different way?

You're a student of history, like the Medicare and Medicaid program were enacted the same day as a political compromise. And how many things, the Emancipation Proclamation, everything. One vote. One vote.

Which is incredible when you think about that one vote. The person who tipped the scales in whatever direction is usually not the person that you ever [00:21:00] remember or knew about, and yet the implication that it can have for generations is fascinating.

I want to dig into either something that you were passionate about when you represented it, either legislation, the Hill, etc. Was it something that passed that was really important to you that you're like, yes, we did that, or something that you were passionate about that did not quite make it. To share both spectrums would be fascinating for our listeners.

Actually, I have a

good example where I did not have to go to Capitol Hill. I'd like to share that one. So in 1965, when Medicare was passed, The statute express, there's covered benefits, express included benefits, then there's medical necessity, which is more, not opaque, it's opaque rather than clear, and then you have express exclusions, and one of the number one exclusions are hearing aids.

And Medicare doesn't pay for hearing aids. Medicaid does, that's a whole different [00:22:00] story. So a client came to us with a product that was for single sided deafness because the skull can, take vibrations and you can make it so that it's balanced hearing. And unfortunately, the name of the product had the name hearing aid in its name.

And of course, Medicare denied coverage, but they were paying for a cochlear implant. And you'd say to yourself how can you pay for a cochlear implant, which also aids in hearing, and not this? It turns out that there is this other enumerated benefit called the prosthetic device, which is the replacement of a body part, and the cochlear implant was replacing It turns out that single sided deafness was the replacement of an inner ear nerve. And it took a couple of years and I had to prove what was in existence in 1965 couldn't have intended it to be this. We thought we'd have to amend the law, but we were able to convince CMS [00:23:00] to change it through their policy issuance.

I'm not sure I could have accomplished that. today, but years ago. It was so exciting to see them finally. Give it the coverage that's due. It's hard to get Medicare coverage on certain products and services because it has to be within the four corners of what I call the 1965 law with a lot of bandages on it.

For individuals that are not in public office or not in the Beltway, what are some effective ways to make a difference in causes they care about?

First of all, to pay attention and be politically active. And politically active isn't inside the Beltway term. It could mean giving money to a campaign, making sure the member of Congress or the, congressional member or the senator from your state has a position paper on your subject, creating personal relationships with their district offices people, [00:24:00] and then coming to Washington D.

C. and meet with their federal staffers as well. I think anyone who has a business in health care should have a personal relationship with their representatives. Because you need that relationship before you have the ask.

Yes.

And you don't have to give a lot of money. It doesn't have to be a gazillion dollars.

You don't have to be Elon Musk. But you'd be surprised how much the member of Congress actually appreciates having someone tell them what's going on in health care in their district, what issue, and that perspective can be very informative because you don't know who visited that office the hour before, and you don't know who visited the office the hour later.

If you have an issue that you feel very strongly about or just want to have the relationship and let the member's staffer or the member tell you what's on their plate that you may not be [00:25:00] aware of that could affect you, I think that's a good use of your time and you don't have to have a Washington DC office.

You can do it yourself. If you go on the website, it'll tell you who your member is and you get one member for a district and you get two senators per state. I know there's some very tiny states in America that get two senators, but you're lucky if you're in a smaller state. You could more easily have a personal relationship with these members.

In the old days, they used to be all older than me, and now they're mostly younger than me.

If people don't feel like they have the financial means to have an impact, the one of the best currencies is time. And if the advocacy that you are passionate about You can donate the time or an educated perspective towards that's powerful local influence that.

bubbles up to the state and government level. help out a local hospital board where I live because they're asking, like, how can [00:26:00] they improve the patient experience and how can they improve margin, et cetera. I donate my time to them because they want my background from healthcare. And when I shared with them some of the basic perspectives, I said, try to make an appointment and try to pay a bill at your hospital.

If you can get those two things you're going to be so much better off. And they're like, Really? That's part of the issue? And I said, that's your biggest issue. You can't get an appointment. And then when you do, you're billing as a disaster on the back end. And they were like, wow, no one's really ever told us that from that perspective before.

So I always say to people like, never underestimate the power of your time.

I would also tell you from an outsider, and I'm managing my 93 year old dad's healthcare experience. Unfortunately, he had urinary tract infection recently. And your ability to call the nurse's station on the floor where he is so you can find out what happened or a change in meds at the hospital level was such a challenge.

When he went to rehab, it was so [00:27:00] much easier because I got a direct dial number to the nurse's station and I know they have many things they have to do, but they, were much more accommodating and They also wanted to talk to the family but the, you are correct. Getting an appointment, getting a bill that explains the service that was rendered, and being able to communicate to the health care provider, whether it's a hospitalist, a nurse, a physical therapist, it is not easy.

not easy at all. And if you and I have challenges navigating our crazy chaotic healthcare system, I have no idea how regular people do it who are not from the healthcare industry.

Which is why our friends call us every time something happens. Yes. And there's always,

thank God, one person in the family.

Somebody knows what's going

on and can help for sure. What are you, seeing right now is our most critical healthcare [00:28:00] policy issues. facing the U. S. and what steps do you believe we need to take to address them? Oh, you have another hour? I've got about about 10 minutes. I'm just curious that perspective and also how people can not feel overwhelmed by all of this information that's literally coming at them in tidal waves of content.

I went to Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That's where my parents moved to set up the home care company. Franklin and Marshall is mostly pre med, pre law. And my senior year, I had a health an economics professor spend a private study.

There were about six of us to study the healthcare system. And this is 1976. And this is 1976. And we studied the baby boomers and all the different generations that we're going to go through and how the demographics were going to affect supply and demand of health professionals. And we saw there was going to be a gap and we came up with great recommendations in the [00:29:00] perfect world what we were going to do.

But we have known for a very long time that The baby boomers are going to hit Medicare eligibility, and we are so unprepared for this. And it's so unfortunate because We needed to plan better. However, technology may end up being part of the solution, particularly where there are shortages, and our ability to embrace technology as potential solution may end up being very critical.

And particularly when we are at this stage, anti immigrant, not allowing certain types of health care services people come into our country to support us. And I'm not just talking long term care, I'm just talking getting a urology appointment or anything. And it is what it is and we're all going to We [00:30:00] have to figure it out ourselves what we're going to do, but the supply and demand is out of whack right now, and there's all different ways of solving it.

The weight loss activities right now. actually can be a cost saver over the long run. We know that. The ability to have the statins has reduced the amount of open heart surgery that used to happen. My grandmother was one of the experiments for bypass surgery. Back in the 70s, and there's a lot less bypass surgeries happening than there used to be, but artificial hips and knees took place of that, which is a wonderful thing so that you can stay physically active to stay healthy.

So anything about staying healthy, people say you have to show return on investment. I'm telling you, you're allowed to just know that it's going to have a return on investment. And then the other. [00:31:00] is the whole issue of long term care. we don't have enough nursing home beds in America, and people don't want to be in a nursing home.

And I know here in Florida, there's an unbelievable waiting list for the Home and Community Based Waiver services of Medicaid. And who knows if, People are able to save enough and it'll fall on the children and maybe the grandchildren to help support their elderly parents the good news is we have more longevity.

The bad news, it costs money to have longevity.

Yeah, we just did a, covered an article this past week that there's over 53 million people in America who have a caregiver role. We were talking about hospice specifically and when you enact it and different times, but over 16 percent of America takes care of somebody in a caregiver need or perspective.

And that's the family member or equivalent that's doing that. That's not even when you have a hospice support worker or anybody else. And what most people don't realize is that those last two years of your life are the most expensive [00:32:00] and. It falls on either private care, which is often self pay, or the family to have that around the clock support.

There's no magic wagon that shows up when you call the phone number. I want a magic wagon! And the hard part was, I didn't learn this until I had a terminally ill parent, and I was like, You mean nobody will, nobody helps and they're like not unless you're paying for it privately because she wanted to be at home.

And so we figured it out. We made it work. She had saved for that very purpose, but at the same time, essentially her entire life savings went to the last two years of her life so that she could stay at home and have private care and have us. supplement as appropriate. And those are just lessons I share with people.

I'm like, learn about these things before you need them. Because inevitably, either you or somebody you know, is going to be faced with those decisions and those perspectives. And it's a whole lot better to know about it when you're not in the stress of the moment already. And so whether you're following policy, or just understanding how the law works [00:33:00] in your state, and how the insurance that you or your family have.

lets you do those things. It's powerful thing to know about and it's not comfortable for most people to talk about.

It's like I told people there should be a course on Medicare, Medicaid, like they used to do driver's license in high school where my parents moved in Lancaster. We ended up in a more rural high school where most of the high school students were not going on to college.

And I kept thinking to myself, how much They were not taught about certain things in life to be prepared to be a good citizen in society. And I just think that these are fundamental government programs to support our community and they're complicated.

Yeah, learn about open enrollment before you turn 65 is usually the advice that I give to people right on that cusp of 60.

I'm like, you know how Medicare works, don't you? And they're like, No, I'm like, time to learn. Time to learn way before you need to enroll because every year you got to figure that [00:34:00] stuff out for yourself. I do want to take it a little bit lighter because we touched on some heavy stuff today. What's most exciting to you about the future of healthcare law and what you're seeing over the next few years?

I'd like to spend the time to say women's health is finally getting the attention it deserves. In fact, we put together a women's health group in our law practice whose focus is specifically on any widget and any service that's specific to women's health issues. For many, years, was very little solutions coming to market for menopause, for the fact that women disproportionately get Alzheimer's, that we experience heart disease differently.

I know the American Heart Association and many facilities now have a women's heart health program, but The men got a lot more attention and they were in the clinical trials. Now we have women in clinical trials, but there's so many different [00:35:00] products and services. Not just reproductive. We're not just about being a factory to make babies.

We have other reasons why our bodies act differently. And I just think that this is one of the most exciting areas. I went to a conference in September on a Women's Innovation Health Summit and saw products and widgets that I thought were incredible. And of course, a disproportionate amount, not exclusively, the founders of these companies were female.

And in fact, about, eight out of the 20 WBL fellows have products and services that are specific to the female population. Some of them are for aging issues, some of them are for reproduction, some of them are specific to mental health, sexual health, things like that. I think that's one of the most exciting areas of health law.

right now where we could use that coding coverage and payment and [00:36:00] all the knowledge we have from regular products and be able to help these women's health companies bring products to market sooner, quicker, more efficiently, and have the self funded employers who are the number one payer in America.

demand these products and services as part of their benefits package. Because in health care, a disproportionate amount of our employees in the health care life science industry are female. They may not be at the senior executive levels, but they are the predominant workers of our health care life cycle industry and life science industry, and they deserve all different types of mental health, physical health nutritional health, products and services that have been studied specific to what women need.

Well said. And to your point recently as you hear different really advertisements on some of the podcasts I listen to in the news [00:37:00] feeds, it's and these are covered by your insurance. And I've noticed that qualifier coming up in some of the, statements. And I was like, what an important thing for people to realize.

Because a barrier may be like, wow, I, that would be something I'd love to look into. And yet I've resoundingly heard from so many people, don't know if I can afford it. And when it starts to get layered into your insurance, what a great space to advocate.

And you're right. You hear more and more about Femtech and women's issues coming forward and being more comfortable to be discussed, which means they'll start to get the traction that it continues to deserve. As we wrap up, Lynn, and I could talk to you for hours. I'm grateful that I'm one of those people that get to off and on.

However, a couple light questions again, as we head into the end of our conversation is what is your favorite hidden gem or must visit spot in Washington, D. C.?

The Capitol Building. Really, to go to the Capitol, take the tour, and get your member of Congress to give you, they have to accompany you.

Somebody from the staff accompanies you up a [00:38:00] staircase where you go all the way up outside the dome and have the most beautiful view of the entire city. My daughter Rachel Snyder Good worked for A majority leader, Steny Hoyer, her last few years on the Hill, she was his Chief Health Policy Advisor, and for my October birthday, she took me up to the top of the dome. It's the most beautiful place in Washington, D. C., but you need permission to get up there.

I would love to see the pictures and now I have a new item to add to my life list of the things I need to experience and that view is definitely going to be one.

When you

walk around, you see the mall and the Lincoln one way and the Washington Monument, then you walk and you see the Supreme Court, then you walk and see Library of Congress, then you walk and see the Potomac River, you see the whole 360 degrees.

And how wonderful to experience that in a city where you've been for so many years and realize there's these truly these hidden gems that even you get to discover on an ongoing basis.

Last [00:39:00] question, and this one is if you could give your younger self one piece of career advice, what would

Take more credit for what you do. Every once in a while you're allowed to say I instead of we. It's hard for, it's hard for women.

It is.

It's very hard for women in particular. It's even hard for me to do that.

I just love the word we. I'm not that comfortable with the word I. I should have done it. years earlier, and it clouded, my contributions to certain outcomes in a way. Although in the long run, it's not that my parents always said there was going to be nothing that would hold me back as long as I was professional, conscientious.

And I will tell you one of the reasons why I stayed at the firm all these years is when things were not right, I would speak to people and they either fixed it or they told me why I was wrong. That's all you can ask for from management. Either they'll fix it or maybe I'm not as smart or think that's the right [00:40:00] solution.

And that's part of that opportunity to learn about what it means to be management. It's very hard to be management. You're juggling a lot of tennis balls at the same time. And I just think that sense of credit and accomplishment, especially for women, to take more credit when you are really the one making things happen, and not just hide behind the credit of somebody else.

I love that advice across the board. And we have so many listeners who we often say all of the women who listen, but also all of our male allies. And many of them obviously have daughters, wives, and others in their lives where hearing this is important

lynn, I'm so grateful for you, for our friendship, for our continued ideas that we bring forward into the industry. And this will definitely not be the only time that our listeners have a chance to hear from you. And stay tuned, we'll continue to bring lots of great programming ideas forward, both through This Week Health and through WBL.

org. If you're curious, check it out. And thanks for listening to Flourish. That's all for now.

Thanks for tuning [00:41:00] into Flourish, where we unearth the hidden gems of career journeys, illuminating paths to success and fulfillment. If you found value in today's conversation, please share it with your peers and leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.

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