History - 1965

We have been able to identify no specifics about the location or leadership of the 1965 conference of the Minnesota association.  St. Cloud Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic is the only present member clinic of the association which was founded in 1965.  Vivian Linquist became Administrator of the Fridley Medical Center in this year.

Richard Lehigh, Manager of the Owatonna Clinic from 1960, joined MGMA in 1965 bringing the Minnesota contingent to 24 members.

The 39th Annual Conference of MGMA was held in Portland, Ore., on October 17-20, 1965, under the leadership of President Carl Anderson, FACCM, of the Portland Clinic.

Regulations seemed to be a significant matter of concern in that:

• Pharmacy ownership regulations (which were contested by clinics throughout the country) were threatening but not sustained; and
  
• Professional incorporation -- medical groups and others supporting bills introduced by Congressman Weltner and Senator Talmadge.  The courts were ruling against the IRS repeatedly.
  
  

Association activities included:

• MGMA adopted "primary purpose of MGMA" statement and
  
• Medicare was started on July 1, 1966, despite a 1965 MGMA resolution and opposition thereto.  This resolution was a first in the way of the organization's officially adopted positions on public issues.
  
  

Wayne B. Foster was President of the Midwest Section when it sponsored an April 1965 institute on purchasing and maintenance at the Cleveland Clinic.  Many Minnesotans attended.  It was an extremely valuable program.  In May 1965, the Western Section institute was held in San Francisco on the subject of EDP clinics.  This institute was held back to back with the Western Section Conference in Sacramento.  In June 1965, the Eastern Section, in cooperation with MGMA, AACM and William and Mary College, sponsored an institute at Williamsburg on the subject of insurance.

June Shaver of the Northwestern Clinic in Crookston served as Treasurer of MGMA in 1965 serving, as well, on the Board of Directors, along with President Carl Anderson of the Portland Clinic, President-Elect C. Warner Litten of the Fargo Clinic, First Vice President William Barry of the Joslin Clinic in Boston, Second Vice President Delmar Caywood of the Smith-Glynn-Callaway Clinic in Springfield, Mo., and Secretary Donald Starr from the Tucson Clinic.

If you transport yourself mentally back to the 1930s and 1940s, you may recall a sense of the transportation modes of the time.  Trains were used very heavily for passenger traffic.  For example, Harold Scherer of the Monroe Clinic in Wisconsin, and Harold Heberlein of the Jackson Clinic in Madison, traveled mostly by train in the early years.  They would customarily meet in Chicago with good friend Glen Garrett of the Burns Clinic and go off together to the National Conference.  They renewed those experiences in 1965 when they traveled the northern route to Portland, Ore.  On this trip they encountered a large number of Minnesota managers.

These Minnesota managers had chosen to travel to Portland by train as a novelty.  They and their spouses reserved an entire car on the train and had a most memorable trip to Portland.  We can recall that the Asplins, Andersons, Newells, Costellos, Youngquists and Lehighs were among the group taking off from the Twin Cities.  Patty Newell brought along a birthday cake to celebrate Bob's birthday.   At Staples, Minn., the group was joined by Al Farley and Al Vonderhaar from Virginia, Minn.  Most of these train travelers returned by plane.

There was another story of interest about the Portland conference.  Many of the people traveling by train from the Twin Cities along with Stan Allen from Duluth, Ralph Schmierer from Fargo and C. Warner Litten from Fargo were members of the team planning the 1966 conference in Minneapolis.  Thus they set out for Portland with a firm purpose of learning all they could about putting on the conference.  At that time the President and the Conference Committee had most of the responsibility for everything connected with the conference.  To be sure, Ed Stevens, the Executive Secretary, provided valuable guidance and intelligence carried over from year to year and an abiding interest in the budget.  However, the limited Denver staff was unable to undertake much beyond that.