History - 1994

First Board Meeting was held 11/4/93 at Windows on Minnesota.

Winter meeting was at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis in February of 1994.  Our state was in the midst of a flurry of activity with Minnesota Care being new legislation enacted that year.  We had many new acronyms to learn, including my favorites, ISN and PHO.

Medical Group contracting stands out as probably one of the major themes that year as it related to exclusivity with health plans and hospital systems, etc.  (Gee, things sure have changed a lot, haven't they?)

2% Provider Tax kicked in, and we spent the next eight years fighting it. 
Result – 1.5% Provider Tax.

Legislative monitoring, and the very early stages of MMGMA's advocacy role began to unfold.  Mr. Davenport and several others, including Mr. Tierney a time or two, visited the legislature and several legislators throughout the year in an effort to bring our points home.

Jim Wilkus achieved the well-deserved fellow status in the ACMPE.

Federal level activity pertinent to medical groups included a Stark III provision that further defined what a group practice was, and more importantly, what wasn't a group practice.  We all still deal with the remnants of the State and Federal legislation and regulations started in the early 90's. 

I think the lesson to be learned from this is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.