History - 1998

Individuals - 600

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.

1998 saw continued progress within the MMGMA towards the institutionalization of a number of major changes made during the 96 and 97 tenureships of Pam Johnson and Mark Fisher.

A major goal of my "year at the Helm" was to provide focus toward the implementation of the fall 1997 recommendations of the governance task force to modify the MMGA structure. As a result, number commitments were made and implemented to include the following:
1. A streamlined officer structure was put into place
2. The past presidents council was created to provide on going support and experience to the board of directors
3. Established an "on-going association" with the administrative support firm (Nonprofit Solutions) providing the board of directors with new access to professional association experience
4. Created a financial committee to standardize and oversee budgeting

With the support of people like Tom Spiczka (winter meeting chair) and Ron Klemz (summer chair) we held successful meetings with outstanding themes and excellent attendance. The winter meeting held at the Radisson South Bloomington identified "Changing the Trend: Leading the way" as it's focus. The summer meeting was held in the seaport city of Duluth and carried the theme "Staying afloat from the pilot house to the engine room". I believe we set a record (to that date) for a summer meeting. WOW! I'll never forget the barbeque dinner on the lawn of the Glensheen Mansion on the North Shore. Also by offering membership status to those attending that meeting, we broke the 600 membership goal we had set for ourselves at the beginning of the year.

Our final goal that we successfully met was that of financial viability. Our financial strength grew considerably in 1998. I am proud of that. During my tenureship, and because of our nautical theme at the summer meeting, I picked up and frequently used a comment Mark Fisher made during his presidency. "You don't want the ship to go down on your watch" since that I have heard several presidents use that remark. Perhaps that's my legacy.

Thank you for allowing me to reminisce.

Jerry Knuesel
Administrator, Winona Clinic, LTD.

Committees

* Jerome B Knuesel	- President
Pamela K Johnson	- Past President