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AHLA's Speaking of Health Law
"Icing on the Cake": A Health Law Career Is a Journey
No two health law careers are the same; some follow a more traditional path, while others are more non-linear. Lisa Diehl Vandecaveye, Of Counsel, Epstein Becker Green, and Priya Bathija, Founder & CEO, Nyoo Health, discuss their unique health law career journeys and what they have learned along the way. They share how the health law profession has changed since they started their careers, secrets for a successful career, “icing on the cake” career moments, how health lawyers can support each other’s career journeys, and some of the skills that are necessary to be a good general counsel.
Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iva2Q6UOt0
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Welcome. I'm here
SPEAKER_01:with my colleague and dear friend Priya. We met several years ago while working on a webinar for AHLA, and I want to say a special thank you to Priya for participating in the podcast, and special thanks to all of you for listening to our podcast today. Today, we're talking about our healthcare law journeys and discussing how healthcare attorneys can help each other on that journey. Each journey is different. but there are opportunities to discuss shared experiences. And that will make us all better at what we do. Specifically, we'll talk about icing on the cake experiences. Some of them are good, some of them are maybe not so good, a little bit challenging, but they are pivotal in our experience. As all of you are very familiar with, healthcare law has changed very significantly in the last 40 years, the same way that healthcare has changed. A New York Times article recently discussed how healthcare has remade the economy. It's pretty amazing. In 1990, the majority of the top employers by state were in manufacturing. In 2024, the majority of the top employers in each state are in healthcare. If you think about that for a moment, the majority of the top employers are in healthcare. So that makes your job as a healthcare attorney a very important piece of today's economy. We are exploring today the healthcare law journey. what it means to have an icing on the cake. And then if we have a few minutes at the end, what it may take to become a GC. So as we move on this journey, Priya, tell us a little bit about yourself and your health law career path.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, thank you, Lisa, for inviting me to be a part of this conversation. And I love that you highlighted that new data about healthcare being the lead driver of economies in communities, the growth that presents to all of us as health law attorneys. So a little bit about me, I've had a non-traditional path through health law. I started with law school at The Ohio State University and straight out of law school went to a law firm that was based in Akron, Ohio called Buckingham, Doolittle and Burroughs. Spent some time there learning the law learning health law, understanding regulations like HIPAA, anti-kickback, and Stark, and represented a lot of physicians, physician groups, as well as small hospitals. After spending about four years there, I went in-house at ProMedica Health System, which is in Toledo, Ohio, and again, spent about four and a half years there in multiple roles. I started as a hospital attorney, just representing several business units for the system and then becoming assistant general counsel, or I believe my official title was associate general counsel, where I continued to represent business entities within the organization, but also lead the other attorneys within the department. I left ProMedica to go to MedStar Health System, where I served as hospital counsel for two hospitals, MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and MedStar Washington Hospital Center. If you're familiar with the system, those are the two largest hospitals within the system, and they are two of the larger hospitals in the DC area. I was there for a short period of time before deciding I wanted a new challenge and switched over to the healthcare policy space and joined the American Hospital Association. I spent about five years doing pure healthcare policy advocacy work around inpatient payment rates, rural hospital issues, and looking at new delivery models that we may use in the future if hospitals in vulnerable communities needed to close. So after doing that, I got a new role at the AHA where I was focused on building a think tank that focused on healthcare costs and affordability. So that sort of took me outside of the law and policy spectrum into more education, strategy, understanding what hospital leaders needed in order to respond to the trends in the healthcare environment. That grew into a much bigger role that ultimately was called VP of Strategic Initiatives, which I'm sure we'll talk about more in our conversation. And now... For the past three years, I have what I call a portfolio career where I'm doing multiple different things. The first area I'm focused on is women's health. I have a company called New Health that provides education and resources to hospitals and health systems that are looking to expand access to care for women. I do some health equity work on the side for large trade associations. And I teach at two different law schools, which again, we'll talk about as we move forward. But it's a very varied journey, I think, that I've had that I could have never predicted when I was in law school, but have really enjoyed watching it play out. So Lisa, I just spent a long time walking through my path. Can you tell us a little bit about yours?
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Priya. And you've got a very interesting career and I'm just fascinated by the whole portfolio concept. So I'm hoping we'll have some time to talk about that today. My career path was a little more traditional. I started nearly 40 years ago as a healthcare attorney and as a healthcare executive. And over the course of those 40 years, I've had about 25 years as a general counsel. So 15 of those years as a general counsel for a medium-sized healthcare system in Michigan, and then the last 10 years, or nine and a half years, as the Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer with the Joint Commission. I retired from the Joint Commission in December of last year, and I started the next phase of my career, and I'm currently of counsel with Epstein Becker and Green, and I'm grateful to Epstein Becker and Green for the opportunity to continue to provide legal and governance services to general counsels throughout the health law community. So in many ways, I've developed a very niche area in that I'm looking to work with general counsels as they work through some very difficult issues, utilizing obviously the attorney-client privilege, but then And then also to work with governance. Over the course of those 40 years I served as board secretary for 15 nonprofit healthcare boards. So, if you've seen one governance, you've seen one governance. So, that's my 40 years in a nutshell, and I'm sure we'll have time to talk a little bit more about that today.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's great. You know, I think one of the parts I love the most about health law is that we can have such different career paths, but still have so much in common and to talk about in conversations like this. And Lisa, you touched on it in your introduction, but you talked about how the health law profession has changed in the past 40 years since you started practicing. Can you share some insights there on what has changed?
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Priya. And, you know, we keep talking about change, but every time I open up my computer, I look at my phone, there's another change coming down the pike. And when we look at the last 40 years, you know, when I first started, I've always been passionate about healthcare and passionate about the law. So when I looked for an opportunity to springboard in after finishing my JD and MBA, you know, I talked to several professors and I said, I want to do healthcare law. And I got this blank stare like, what do you mean? There is no such thing as health care law. You won't be able to make a living on that. And I said, no, this is I have to follow my passion and I want to do a combination here. And at the time I did my thesis on Karen Quinlan, since it was the only controversial legal issue from an end of life perspective. So I took the risk and I forged forward and that became a dual path of doing health care law and health healthcare executive. So I followed the path and my first few jobs, I ran a long-term care facility. I had multiple departments in a hospital in addition to being in the general counsel. But you know what? That risk paid off because the time I spent in operations and the time I continued to spend in operations has helped me to really understand the business of healthcare. So the industry has changed. If you think about it, and I think back, we think of Marcus Welby, right? Where we had a physician in private practice, we had standalone hospitals, and we didn't have systems. But those systems have evolved where there's multiple physician models, there's employment models, there's multiple sites of care. I don't recall ever seeing an ambulatory surgery center or in urgent care. In addition, we have multiple payment models and we have regulation in every aspect of healthcare, from HIPAA to the Accountable Care Act. So it really has expanded pretty significantly. And I would be remiss not to talk about the political and social issues that are complex. When I think back that the complex issue, difficult issue was end of life, today a controversial issue is a vaccine. Vaccines were never controversial, but they are today. So it kind of gives you an idea of you have to be pretty flexible in the industry and be willing to really dig in and understand not only the industry, but the practice. So Priya, you've been in practice 20 years. So you've seen some pretty significant changes also. And can you share some of your thoughts on those?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So, I mean... There are a number of changes I've seen, and I will say that when I became a health law attorney 20 years ago, I didn't actually know that being a health law attorney was a thing when I was in law school. We didn't have any health law courses, which is very different than the world we live in today, where there are not only sort of certificate programs in health law, but multiple courses that are offered across law schools in this country. So I didn't know that this was something I could do until I was an associate at a law firm in the summer after my second year. And so I think that's different. Another thing, you know, when I first started, I remember the healthcare partners at my law firm joking that there is no better job security than to be in health law. And at the time, Thank you so much. interpreting to be helping clients navigate through. And somehow 20 years later, it seems like there's even more than there was 20 years ago. Like you said, there's more issues that we're focused on. There's more vantage points. There's different types of providers. There's different types of payment structures that ever existed before. And so it does seem like a good place for job security. The other thing I would say is that opportunities feel more broad and it feels like there's more choices for young attorneys that want to follow a health law path. Again, when I was in law school, two options, right? You go work for a law firm, you get a clerkship. Those were the options that were presented to us. as students. And now it's so much broader and I see it with the law students that I teach both at Moritz College of Law in Columbus, Ohio, as well as Loyola School of Law in Chicago. They have different paths that they can take straight out the gate from law school. I've seen law students get jobs doing policy analysis for organizations like the Kaiser Family Foundation. I've seen them go directly into in-house roles. I've seen them take on compliance roles. They've taken on policy roles straight out the gate, something that I took 10 years to navigate towards. They're able to sort of get their foot in the door early on. So it's exciting to to see the growth of pure health law and regulation, but also the opportunities that are available to us as health lawyers. So you've been doing this a long time, Lisa, and I'm so thankful to... I
SPEAKER_01:have to laugh. It has been a long time, but it's been a good career.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, absolutely. And I'm thankful for... attorneys like you who have put being health lawyers as a forefront and tried different things so that we have different paths to follow. Along the way, I'm sure you've developed some secrets to success or thoughts on how we can be successful as healthcare attorneys. Would you mind sharing some of those?
SPEAKER_01:Well, thanks, Bria. I'm not sure I have secrets. I have sort of a philosophy. And, you know, sometimes you have to sort of stick to your gut and what your philosophy is. And I like the use of acronyms. So I use my philosophy as work, W-O-R-K. It's work. It's not your family. It's not your personal life. It's not your health. All those are all important, but this is work. And so it also kind of reminds you to keep it all into context. So W, I know it's kind of corny, but, you know, is for work. There is no substitute for hard work. I've known over the years, if I can do anything, I can outwork anybody. And even at my years, I've been known to pull all-nighters if there's something that has to get done. So there really is no substitute for the W or for work and for hard work, because you always have to be ready to learn and you have to be ready to put that extra effort in to take it to the home run. Always for optimism. Many of us forget that we're leaders and as leaders, we have to inspire others. And so we have to be optimistic, even on those difficult days where you say, I just don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to do this anymore. Or you, as I had a boss once did throw her shoe at my window. It's like, You have to have optimism and you've got to be optimistic because you have so many people that are looking at you and your clients need your optimism to help them work through their difficult issues. The R is for resilience. And when I think about resilience, it's not just resilience, it's active resilience. Actively thinking about the fact that I'm going to pick myself up. I'm going to find another creative solution if the one I first came up with doesn't work. You're going to get knocked around. There are going to be good days. There's going to be bad days. There's going to be very difficult issues, sometimes difficult people. But you have to pick yourself up and do it with a smile because you're advocating for a client. You're advocating for an industry. And as such, you've got to be actively resilient. And the last is K. And K is for kinship. And that's something I call the art of being a part of a team. And that what you're doing and being a part of a team is what really jazzes me. And when you're working with a team of professionals that have integrity and a sense of humor, you're going to love what you do. Especially if the members of your team are passionate about healthcare and passionate about healthcare law. Because I think that kinship with being the part of a team, a team that works well together and works to help each other be successful, can work through any issue that comes before them. And we certainly have enough difficult issues to deal with. So that's kind of in a nutshell. So Priya, what would you like to add? You've been tremendously successful in many different areas. And so what would you like to add to what are your secrets to success?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I love that acronym of work. And I think that's a new secret I'm going to add to my future work. But, you know, I think Building on the K that you shared and the idea of kinship, looking beyond just the team that you work on, but more broadly to the health law field as a whole, working to build relationships that really last, right? So I'm not talking about a relationship that is tied to one particular business transaction or meeting someone one time at a conference, but true relationships where you actually get to know the humans that you're working with across the aisle and relationships where you understand what your colleagues at different firms and different organizations are part of the healthcare ecosystem are working on so that you can help each other do all the things that are in your work acronym right to actually do the work to stay optimistic to be resilient together and then of course kinship back to building longer term relationships and i think about our relationship lisa i mean our friend delphine o'rourke brought us together for a maternal health webinar four or five years ago, right? And I know we both still work with Delphine and she's doing amazing stuff in the women's health space, but we've also had the opportunity to stay connected and to help each other and meet each other in different forums. So we're not just connected through the American Health Law Association. We're connected through the women business leaders in healthcare. We've had numerous conversations with each other about career decisions and paths and how we move forward on different things outside of just planning for this podcast. And so the Health Law Association is a great place to start. And we were just together in San Diego at the annual meeting.
SPEAKER_04:And
SPEAKER_03:maybe because I had this podcast on my mind, I was just thinking about all the people I was reconnecting with and how so many of them have come from relationships I've had when I've been in multiple roles, right? So there were outside counsel that we used when I was at ProMedica, when I was at MedStar. I was talking with people I had done educational events with during my time at the AHA. So if you build the right relationships, they can help you succeed and they can help you just get by day to day in this field. The second thing, You touched on it earlier. I think it's being willing to be ready to learn new things all the time. The law is ever changing. We're constantly getting new laws and regulations that we need to adjust to. The healthcare environment is being challenged in ways it never has been before. And I think we as health law attorneys need to be sort of on the forefront of understanding what all of this means for our clients, right? And so I think about my career and what I plan to do versus what got thrown at me on any given day. And probably the best example from my career is when I was at ProMedica. I mean, I was a healthcare regulatory transaction attorney. Like that was my sweet spot and my zone. Litigation, not on my radar. Antitrust litigation, even more so not on my radar. But the FTC came in and challenged a transaction that I had worked on. And before I knew it, I was suddenly the lead point person between our outside counsel that were experts in antitrust law. the FTC and our business leaders that were responsible for testifying, providing information. And so I got a crash course on antitrust law and it continued that way. Every role I've had, there's been crash course after crash course on new areas. And had I not been willing to do it, I may not have had jobs, right? But I also just, I don't think I would have experienced my career in the same way if I hadn't been so willing to raise my hand and learn new things.
SPEAKER_01:Right, I refer to those events as muscle memory events. Because you dive so deeply into that issue for such a, well, it doesn't seem like a short period of time when you're working on an issue for six months or three months. But in the whole career perspective, It builds that muscle memory.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And that's such a great way to put it because it comes up in different places. So there were some things I worked on when I was at ProMedica that I recently had a conversation with a women's health startup and they asked me a question and I was only able to answer that question because of the work I had done 10, 12 years ago. And so I love that phrase, muscle memory.
SPEAKER_01:But isn't it, it's, it's, and I hate to use the term cool because I'm dating myself again, but it's, it's really fun in the sense that there are never two issues that are the same because the facts are different, but the muscle memory and like, okay, I remember that because I dealt with this issue and it just starts, the neurons keep, firing, and you figure out a solution. But you wouldn't have known that if you hadn't had the experience.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. So when you think about your 40 years, and I
SPEAKER_01:kind of cringe sometimes when I say 40 years,
SPEAKER_03:oh, man, you should be so proud of it. Like that is, it's so amazing to be able to say like, 40 years of building that muscle memory. Like if a client came to you today, you are so capable of handling anything that they could throw at you, even in this crazy environment because of it. I think it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:But you've had- You're very kind.
SPEAKER_03:You've had a pivotal career position. Can you tell us what it is, how you got there, what you learned from it?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think that in many ways we call these pivotal positions as icing on the cake, right? I've had several pivotal positions. It almost feels like every position I've had has taught me something that I've moved forward with. But the most significant was becoming the General Counsel for the Joint Commission, which evolved into the Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and Board Secretary responsible for governance. You know, back when this position became available on the American Health Law Job Board, I saw it and I said, man, that's a really nice job. I'd like that job. And there'd only been one previous general counsel. So this was a very unusual set of circumstances. I was living in Michigan. The job was in Chicago. So I thought, I'm going to throw my hat into the ring. I'm going to fill out the paperwork. And after 13 interviews, four trips to Chicago, I had an offer. And I learned a lot about interviewing.
UNKNOWN:Just from that.
SPEAKER_01:So this was moving and taking this position after 30 years of only being in Michigan, which Michigan's a big state. I mean, there's a lot of big states, but this was icing on the cake because 15 years as a GC, but it was all that basics, understanding healthcare, having functioned as a GC, having had a leadership role at the American Health Law Association, having been on their board, were all pieces that helped prepare me for this leap of faith, so to speak. And every single piece adds up. I had over a hundred health law speaking engagements, and some of that just prepares you for a big step. And for me, the big step was Moving to Chicago, it took courage, it took optimism, moving my family. And for nearly 10 years, it was hard work, but it was the best 10 years because I went from being in Chicago, being responsible for a health system, to being responsible for a business that had aspects in every single state and in 70 countries. And that's not something you can do on your own. So for nearly 10 years, it took me I built what I refer to as the best in class legal team. And to this day, I still refer to them as the dream team. And that dream team of lawyers, paralegals are the best in class. And they were able to do their jobs because we worked so well as a team. And every single one of them was incredibly successful, but we were only successful when we were able to do it as a team. Especially when you're looking at 70 countries and having a workforce that's so diverse and also being responsible for delivering the health services and health services area across all areas of the country. So when we talk about muscle memory, when your span of scope, your scope expands so significantly, you have to really draw on all of those experiences and then have the courage to move forward and build something bigger than what you are. And I think in many ways, I became an expert at issue spotting. When I came to the Joint Commission, I didn't know anything about international law, but I was able to at least issue spot and develop resources both internally and externally, and then also developing an expertise on governance with another team of experts on governance within the Joint Commission. It really was so important that I became a continuous learner.
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:And one of the biggest things I had to do was I got up every morning at five and I would read for just the first hour just to see what happened the day before, what new was coming in, and to try to anticipate or issue spot what might be the issue of that day. And then, of course, there's the constant battle of responding to emails because you have to constantly be willing and be there as a partner with the other health care executives. You know, Priya, I've had what I think has been a great career and I'm very grateful to everyone who has given me both some very positive experiences as well as some challenges along the way because I've learned from all of them. And your career path is so fascinating to me and it sounds like so much fun. So what would you say in 20 years, what was your icing on the cake?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So, you know, Lisa, I thought the icing on my cake was going to be my job at MedStar. It was in-house counsel for two large hospitals. I was responsible for sort of the whole baby within those hospitals from a legal perspective. But it didn't turn out to be what I thought it was going to be. And, you know, you go to law school. I had the sort of two pathways of going to a law firm or going to you know, to a clerkship. I chose the law firm path. And then the dream became being a general counsel at some point. And so when I was 33, I got this opportunity at MedStar. I moved to Washington, D.C. I was so excited. I thought it was everything I had worked for. And then I got here and... It was a lot. The organization was structured very differently in terms of legal services than the organization I had been at previously. I was young. I had a lot of responsibility. I had two different hospitals that had very different cultures and approaches to nearly everything, but particularly law and compliance. And I was trying to manage it all. as a 33-year-old, and it caused me so much anxiety. And I was really good at it in the sense that my clients loved me. The people I reported to and worked with liked working with me. My work product was good, but I didn't feel on a day-to-day basis that I was good at doing what I was doing and that I had the skills, the confidence, wherewithal you would say to be doing this role on a day-to-day basis. And so one day I woke up and I looked in the mirror and I said, do I want to keep doing this? And if the answer to that is yes, do I want to do this for the next 35 years of my career, be in this in-house counsel type role? And for me at that point in time, the answer was no and no. And so I started looking for other opportunities. I was in the D.C. area. Policy seemed interesting to me. And so I took the leap of faith to try something new. And like you described with the Joint Commission, you know, it took courage. It took optimism. It took some of my health law friends saying, OK, if you go and you don't like it or it doesn't work out. you can come work at our law firms. We'll take you back. We think the experience you're going to get at a national trade association is going to be so valuable to us. to us as a law firm, we'll bring you back. And ultimately it was those conversations where people believed in me more than I believed in myself that got me to make the jump. And since then, every jump I've made from policy to think tank to starting my own company has become a lot easier. And I think I am in my icing on the cake phase right now with this portfolio career where I am able to pick the things I want to work on, make impact in the spaces I want to make that impact. And each day feel like I am moving forward my personal mission in the way I want to improve healthcare for individuals living in this country. And so right now, It feels like this is the icing on the cake, but I have a lot of career left to go. So who knows where the next 15, 20 years takes me. Never could have predicted where I am now. So I certainly don't want to try to predict where I'll be many years from now.
SPEAKER_01:You said something that's so important. You followed your personal mission. And that is so important. And I bet that's what jazzes you up and gets you going every day.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You want to share with us today what your personal mission is?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I mean, my personal mission is to improve access to health and health care for women.
SPEAKER_01:That's awesome. That's really great.
SPEAKER_03:And I think it's so important. And a lot of people say to me, well, why women? Like, why not just improving access to health and health care for everyone? And I'll just say, I mean, obviously I'm a woman, so it's important to me from that perspective, but there's so many metrics and data points that show that when we can improve access to health and healthcare for women, we improve the health and healthcare of entire families. And if we have to pick somewhere to start, I want to start with the area that is going to lead to having influence with the other areas. And so it's not that I don't care about men's health or children's health. It is all related. But moving forward on women's health, an area that has typically been sort of under-researched, misunderstood, is really important to me, especially in the current environment where we're seeing a lot of challenges to not only women's ability to access health care, but also women's rights in general.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I thank you for that.
SPEAKER_03:It's not easy. I'll tell you that. No, it's not easy. But it's fun to be able to use the skills I've gathered the last 20 years to do things that align with that personal mission.
UNKNOWN:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:That's terrific.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So one last question. I know where we're sort of at our time, but what have you learned from others and what are ways we can learn from and work together with other health law attorneys?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think, you know, I'll go, I have a lot I'd want to say, but I'll go by this fairly quickly. And one of the things I've learned is to listen more and talk less in a meeting, uh, You know, in listening is hard and you have to practice at it, but it's important to listen. Integrity. At the end of the day, you have to follow your moral compass. You have your mission. And at the end of the day, you have to do what's right based upon what your moral compass says. You also have to be ready to make hard decisions. based upon the expertise and the experience. Then I also think it's so important. You mentioned that we were both at the American Health Law Association meeting just recently. I looked around the room and I'm still going to every session I can go to because it's so critical to stay current. And I learned something from everyone I meet and every person I listen to. It's kind of a personal challenge. But it's also that networking. with other healthcare attorneys. And it's so fascinating to work and be with someone like you, Priya, because it's inspiring and you're making a difference in the world and in the country by pursuing your passion. So what else have you learned?
SPEAKER_03:Well, thank you for saying that. I joke around a lot that I'm just a gal that works in my apartment with my cat. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the work is having an impact. And I think you're right, it is. But sometimes it's just nice to hear. So thank you for saying
SPEAKER_01:that. Well, I do enjoy your Instagram posts. I do enjoy your LinkedIn posts, especially the Good News Fridays.
SPEAKER_03:Wonderful, wonderful. I think the only thing I would add to what you have said, Lisa, and you've captured a lot of these ideas throughout our conversation is finding good mentors and sponsors and understanding how to utilize mentors and sponsors throughout your career to help you move forward. Now, mentors and sponsors are not the same thing. So I encourage you to start there by learning the difference between the two and how they can help. I will say I've been lucky to have access to incredible incredible sponsors who have not only been there to provide me guidance when I needed it, but to open doors that I didn't even realize existed to me in my career. So in addition to all the great input that you had, I would just add the need for those mentors and sponsors. And one last sort of flag is that mentors and sponsors don't have to be people who have more experience than you. I would encourage folks to find intergenerational mentorships and to learn from people who have more experience and less experience or the same level of experience, but across different areas of the law or different parts of the industry. I think there's so much that can be learned from everyone, as you made the point in the sessions that you attended at annual meeting, like there's so much for us to learn in healthcare and about our personal development.
SPEAKER_01:You know, and it's so good because it's so important to hear other people's perspectives. And very often I'll listen to someone who I disagree with just because I want to understand. And it makes me, it helps my critical thinking skills. Now you have to close your mouth and not argue with them.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and Lisa, I think that's so important given this point of time that we're in, right? I think regardless of where you fall on the political or ideological spectrum, it's very clear that we have become a very polarized society. Right. And there's a lot of we believe in this way. And so we exclude all the people or we cancel all the people who believe differently than us. And I think as health law attorneys for our clients and for the people that we represent and work with, whatever environment that may be, it's really important for us to be the people that can listen, learn,
SPEAKER_02:listen.
SPEAKER_03:bridge the gaps between opposing perspectives, connect dots where they need to be connected, and really move us towards consensus. I mean, that's our role. And I think it's important in our day jobs, but it's important for everything in our communities and society
SPEAKER_01:as well. Exactly. It's not comfortable, but it's important to be thoughtful.
SPEAKER_03:So
SPEAKER_01:very good point.
SPEAKER_03:Great. So I think we wanted one more question. I said the last one was the last one, but I think we have time for one more, which is that, what do you think are some of the skills that are necessary to be general counsel?
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's interesting, you know, that has been my career path and it's been a great path. And, you know, it's, as I mentioned earlier, and I'll go through these, it's, you know, the experience with the law. issue spotting, but it's also senior leadership. You know, I spent a lot of time with American College of Healthcare Executives. I'm a fellow, and I'm so happy now that I'm a I think I've gone to the next step, so I don't have to pay dues anymore. But I still get all the material, which I read. You have to understand the business. And I know that, Priya, you've been a speaker at the ACHE conference. So you appreciate the fact that you've got to stay current in the industry and stay as current as you can. So I think it's in order to be a general counsel in a health care organization, you have to know the business. You have to be a senior leader. And you also have to understand the law. Another piece is executive presence. And that is something that I think evolves over time because people have to have confidence in you. They have to trust you. And here I sit still with a jacket on. It's sort of my suit. It's my armor. And it's just what I do and how I do it. So executive presence, expertise, and governance. If you're going to be a general counsel, you have to know that governance of the organization, you have to know how to make that governance as nimble as possible, but also as effective as possible. Delegation. Boy, I talked earlier about having the dream team. You've got to be able to delegate and you can't do everything yourself because there's so much on your plate. So it's not only delegate within the organization, but delegate outside the organization. And that's where the networking is so important. So you know who in the outside firms, the law firms, whether it be EBG, another big firm, who can help manage a situation? Who can you hire now? I call it my lifeline, you know, can I use a lifeline? We've talked about being a continuous learner on multiple topics. And being a general counsel is not for the faint of heart. You're basically a general counsel 24 seven. You have board reporting obligations. You have obligations to the healthcare organization. You're part of a senior management team. So you have to be a part of that team, but you also have to focus on critical and complex issues. So I would venture to say, if I'm working on an issue, I'm also thinking about 10 other issues. Because very often I'd have to process. And so it is a 24-7 job. And then the last thing I would say, you have to be humble. You've got to know when you need to ask for help. And it's critical to have trusted sources that you can brainstorm with. And that was one of the issues that I struggled with, quite frankly, when I was the chief legal officer for the joint commission, because I felt like I couldn't share a lot of information because of the privilege, but I searched for other outside attorneys that had general counsel experience and that I could brainstorm with and say, what would you do in this situation? Who might you use? And that's where I created this general counsel services practice at Epstein, Becker and Green. And it's really to assist general counsels with issues and still maintain the attorney-client privilege, that safe space, so to speak, because the issues are complex and you can save so much time if you could take five or 10 minutes and brainstorm it with someone who has experience, has expertise, and can help you move towards a solution. And it's the same issue with governance. Governance issues can be very challenging. but they're also critical to the success of the CEO and to the organization. So that's why as I move in my next step of my career is to really focus on general counsels, focus on giving back to the health law community and for all the wonderful things that I've been able to touch on my last 40 years. So Priya, what was helpful to you when you served as an assistant general counsel and as hospital counsel?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, Lisa, believe it or not, I wrote down many of the same things that you just covered. So won't reiterate that, but I will say, this general counsel practice group that you're creating, I wish I had had something like that when I was at MedStar. And I think having resources that I could have tapped into that could have helped not just with the different areas of law I was covering and the different challenges I was facing on a day-to-day, but just to know that there was a community out there of folks that were feeling similar things or going through similar challenges as I was facing as that 33-year-old attorney sitting by myself in office trying to advise two hospitals. So thank you so much for creating that for other health law attorneys. I think it will be a really great lifeline for those that are aspiring to be general counsel or who are in general counsel roles. So I will turn it back to you to close out our conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I just want to say thank you to AHLA. Thank you to Priya. This has been a lot of fun putting this podcast together, but let's continue the conversation. And I would challenge each of you that's listening to reach out to other health law attorneys and to think about work, but also how do you follow your own personal mission statement, as Priya has indicated. So Priya, what are your final thoughts?
SPEAKER_03:No, I'm just thankful to you, Lisa, for inviting me to be a part of this conversation and to the AHLA for covering a topic like this. I think it's really easy for associations to focus on education that are specific to our actual areas of practice, but it's really important to have conversations like this about our careers, our professional development and sort of where we can go in the future. So very grateful to be part of this conversation and happy to continue talking about both traditional career paths like the one that you have taken or those off the map nonlinear paths like the one that I've had in my career because both are so important to moving the needle forward in health law.
SPEAKER_01:Great. Thank you, Priya.
SPEAKER_03:Thank
SPEAKER_00:you, Lisa. And stay updated on breaking healthcare industry news from the major media outlets with AHLA's Health Law Daily Podcast, exclusively for AHLA Premium members. To subscribe and add this private podcast feed to your podcast app, go to AmericanHealthLaw.org slash Daily Podcast.