WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Independent Women Features (IW Features), the grassroots storytelling and original journalism arm of Independent Women, is releasing the second feature article in its “Champion Women” profile series celebrating female entrepreneur Cynthia Fisher.
Originally from rural Central Pennsylvania, Fisher has spent her career improving the lives of people throughout not only the U.S., but the rest of the world by revolutionizing health care, encouraging transparency, and expanding access.
In 1993, Fisher founded the medical company ViaCord, which collects, tests, types, and freezes umbilical cord blood and placental blood stem cells “as an alternative to bone marrow for treating cancers like leukemia and certain genetic disorders that were life-threatening to both children or adults,” she told IW Features.
“Since I had worked with bone marrow transplants programs around the globe, I thought, ‘Well, someone needs to set up the logistics to bank stem cells from umbilical cord blood and allow any expectant family to be able to preserve, as a type of biological insurance, their newborn baby’s cord blood that’s otherwise thrown out as medical waste yet has lifesaving capabilities for that child if they would ever have a need, or for another family member,’” Fisher explained.
Fisher noted that ViaCord was “price, quality and outcome transparent, charging people all the same price, and yet [set] the gold standard in the industry at one of the lowest costs.”
Just years later in 2000, Fisher co-founded and served as president of ViaCell, another medical services company.
Fisher eventually sold ViaCord, but her role in the medical community didn’t end.
“I was faced with three people that had jobs, good jobs, they had health insurance, and three of them each had absolute financial ruin from health care,” Fisher said, adding that “they came to me to individually help them through their situation financially.”
“It was that moment that I knew as a mission I needed to go to Washington because I didn’t know if the bills they were charged or the amounts they were to pay were true,” Fisher said, adding that “the only way we could have truth and integrity and accountability in health care is to have all of us be empowered to know prices.”
To accomplish this, Fisher began making trips to Washington, D.C., where she and a handful of lawyers combed through different laws to “study where do we have the right to know prices” — not only as patients but also as employers.
In line with her entrepreneurial spirit, Fisher founded PatientRightsAdvocates.org in 2018 and co-founded Power to the Patients in 2021, two organizations that advocate for price transparency in health care. According to Fisher, she and her team “are fighting their own industry … [b]ecause the greed’s run amuck, and we can do better.”
Fisher has worked across the aisle with Democrats and Republicans to advance real price transparency in healthcare to return a marketplace and put consumers in the driver’s seat. Fisher also has partnered with celebrities, including actresses Susan Sarandon and Cynthia Erivo, and music icons like Jelly Roll, Lainey Wilson, Fat Joe, and Rick Ross to advocate for healthcare price transparency.
Samantha Aschieris, senior contributor for Independent Women Features, said: “From founding ViaCord in 1993 to now fighting for price transparency in health care through Patient Rights Advocate and Power to the Patients, Cynthia Fisher’s passion for excellence and transparency in health care to best serve consumers is inspiring. It’s an honor to feature Cynthia as part of the ‘Champion Women’ series and highlight how she is standing up for everyday Americans by holding hospital and insurance companies accountable.”
Read Cynthia Fisher’s profile here: Champion Women: Why Medical Pioneer Cynthia Fisher is Fighting Her Own Industry
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