Greetings from the President
Over the past couple of months, your Minnesota HFMA leadership group has been taking a fresh look at our strengths and opportunities. Minnesota is a large and diverse chapter with rural and urban locations; provider, physician practice and health plan focuses; industry and vendor members. How can we make our vision to be "an association of healthcare finance professionals, enriching its members by providing personal and professional growth opportunities" a reality for all our members?
To aid us in this process, we relied heavily on a recent survey of Minnesota Chapter members. Conducted by National HFMA, this survey had a good response rate, 38%, and provided some valuable insights and suggestions. You told us we were doing a lot of things right but that you would like to see changes and/or improvements in the areas of communications to members, timing, frequency and location of chapter programs and ways to network.
To that end, we have set in motion plans to provide more and varied educational and networking opportunities for our members:
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A new Compliance Committee (in place - contact Amy Tepp)
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Reestablishment of the Patient Accounting Committee
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A series of breakfast meetings to be held in the metro area.
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New half-day programs for out state Minnesota
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A Spring Institute most likely to be held in central Minnesota
We also made a commitment to increase communications to membership through e-mail announcements, newsletters and more frequent updating of the website (a great place to volunteer!!) Stay tuned for more details. We are excited about the potential!
Each year the chairman of National HFMA chooses a theme for their year in office. For 2006-2007, Chairman Joe Fifer's theme is Courage in Leadership. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our 2005-2006 and prior leaders for their courage in leadership in building a great Minnesota Chapter and to recognize our 2006-2007 leaders for their courage in leadership in committing to take on some significant new initiatives. They have truly stepped up to the challenges you, as members, have presented us.
I would also like to challenge each of you to have the courage in leadership to really get involved in the chapter this year. This is your chapter. We need your involvement and attendance to make these new initiatives successful. Take a leap - take advantage of some of these new opportunities to get the most out of your membership and have some fun along the way.
Please feel free to contact me, at
[email protected], or any of the members of the board of directors or executive committee if you'd like to volunteer or if you have questions, concerns or suggestions.
Stephanie Gilman
612-397-4408
[email protected]
