History - 1997

The Winter meeting venue was changed to the Radisson South.  This change was well receive by the membership.  This meetings keynote speaker was Jennifer James, Ph.D., Anthropologist and her speech was "Generating a 21st Century Mind".

The Summer meeting was held at Madden's Resort in Brainerd.

The Board of Directors held a board retreat in November.

Our key outcomes included:

Further defining the "mission and vision" of MMGMA.  Tim Signorelli led these efforts and fine-tuned our current vision and mission statements.

Mission:  Who are we?

MMGMA is the leading state association dedicated to meeting the professional, educational, networking and leadership needs of medical practice executives, medical group managers and medical group support staff whose professional endeavors affect the quality, cost and efficacy of health care delivery.

MMGMA serves medical practice executives and their organizations, further enabling them to recognize and improve the health status of the community and patients they serve by:

• Promoting and delivering the physician/administrative team approach to healthcare and medical group management
• Enhancing members' professional roles, knowledge and skills
• Building and providing a repository of data, process and organizational design tools
• Advocating with the legislative and regulatory bodies to advance the concept of group practice  with the health delivery system

Several task forces were formed.

Governance Task Force:

Their goal was to develop a recommendation for board changes.

1. Modify the current officer structure to include a President, President-Elect, Secretary/Treasurer, and a Past President.

• This will reduce total time commitment by one year and will allow for consolidation of certain key job responsibilities.

2. Create a "Council of Presidents" committee.

• The committee would be chaired by the Past President and open to all past Presidents maintaining active status in MMGMA.  The purpose of this committee would be to take on special projects, act as a sounding board to the MMGMA Board of Directors and assist in or assure continuity in the officer role.

3. Modify the officer selection process.

• The recommendations suggest that we identify the "best candidate" which has been defined as an individual who is willing to accept the responsibilities, able to accept the responsibilities and finally, has the support of his or her physicians.  Once the best candidate is identified, other key factors such as location, type of size of group, and gender will come into play.

4. Support the MMGMA President, President-Elect and Secretary/Treasurer's attendance at all MMGMA Council of President's meetings.

• Currently, the President and Vice President receive financial support to attend these meetings and attendance has proven to be quite beneficial.  Attendance of all three will ensure continuity and provide a training ground for the officers.

5. Retain professional association leadership.

• The ad hoc committee recommends retaining professional association leadership on a three-year trial basis.  The committee recommends a phased approach to identifying the individual or firm that would provide the leadership and the task force is adamant that this opportunity be available to our members as well as professional firms.  The three-phased approach will, through phase one, allow us to educate ourselves regarding the availability of services and estimate cost for those services, phase two involves the development of an RFP outlining our expectations and phase three is essentially the final selection process.

6. Consider modifying/exploring alternative funding opportunities.

• The task force recognizes that professional association leadership will come at some cost to the organization, the cost will depend upon the level of services provided, etc.  The task force identified a half dozen funding opportunities that could result in $24,000 to $44,000 of additional revenue the MMGMA that would offset some or all of these expenses.

7. Create a finance committee.

• The duties of this committee would be to develop and maintain a budget, evaluate changes in membership dues, registration fees, exhibit fees, advertising fees, etc.  It would be chaired by the Secretary/Treasurer and other members of the committee would include the individual responsible for corporate sponsorship, exhibit chair and membership chair.
  
  

The Member Needs Task Force:

They developed a survey that provided the board with valuable information regarding MMGMA and how they go forward to best represent the membership.

The "Communication" Task Force:

They proposed to expand the website to better serve our members.  Mark Fisher was key to the success of our website.

As a result of the work done by the Governance Task Force the board hired the organization management company, Nonprofit Solutions, Inc.  They continue to assist with the management of MMGMA and they have truly assisted the organization in maintaining the highest caliber of state MGMA organization in the nation.

Sincerely,
Pamela Johnson

Committees

* Pamela K Johnson - President Mark S Fisher - Past President Bonnie A Francisco, M.P.H. - Treasurer Janice M Graner - Secretary Jerome B Knuesel - Vice-President	MMA Liaison * Curtis J Nielsen
Third Party Liaison * James E Tierney