hfmanj - President's Blog

Believe to Achieve

Tina — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:50:24 GMT

It's amazing to think that the 2011-2012 NJ HFMA Chapter year has already begun!

As Mary Taylor passes the torch to me I know that I am following a line of past presidents that have taken the New Jersey chapter to level where it is today. It was under the leadership of Mary Taylor, Brian Sherin, Joe Dobosh, Cheryl Cohen, and Dotti Lindstrom and the leadership teams that they built that the NJ Chapter was able to be recognized nationally as the2011 recipient of the Robert M. Shelton Award for Sustained Chapter Excellence.

Greg Adams, a former NJ Chapter President and great friend of the chapter, was sworn in as the HFMA National Chair at the end of June. His theme for the year, Believe to Achieve is very appropriate for our chapter. As a team, the board, committee chairs, co-chairs, and members all believed that NJ could be and should be recognized as a “Shelton Chapter” based on everything that it provides for the membership.

At a chapter leadership retreat held in May, even before knowing that we were the recipient of National's highest award, the board and incoming committee chairs and co-chairs were all in agreement that to show excellence to the membership the chapter must listen to its members and respond to their needs while recognizing and appreciating the efforts of every volunteer.

Under Lindsey Colombo and Vicky McElarney's leadership we created a Revenue Integrity Committee whose goals are to address issues and share best practices on Revenue Cycle and charge capture topics that are not otherwise addressed by the other HFMA committees. There were close to 50 people either on the phone in in person at a recent committee meeting held at Raritan Bay Medical Center

With Scott Mariani, Lisa Hartman, and Mike DiFranco at the helm, the FACT Committee (Finance, Accounting, Capital and Tax) is changing its focus to be able to provide more educational updates and time for idea sharing between committee members.

The Member Services and Networking Committee will be looking to grow the chapter by focusing on the value of HFMA membership for organizations and looking to colleges and universities to help meet the needs of upcoming healthcare financial managers.

HFMA Certification will be another focus this year. Last year we had 8 members become certified or achieve the level of Fellow in HFMA. Under the revised certification process, members will only need to take one exam to become designated as a Certified Healthcare Financial Professional (CHFP). Watch for information about the upcoming certification coaching course.

Last summer the Board approved a Member Recognition Program that recognizes those who step up within the organization with complementary registration to the NJ Annual Institute. Now is the time to get certified or get involved with an HFMA committee, speak at an HFMA educational event, or write articles for the Focus Magazine.

This year's Annual Institute is going to have something for everyone. We're packing 19 ½ CPEs into 2 ½ days of education while looking to expand the networking opportunities and the time available to spend among our sponsors and exhibitors. You will find more on the 35th Annual Institute later in this issue of the Focus.

I can't recall if it was stated by an ancient philosopher or something out of a fortune cookie that Brian Sherin gave me one night, but somewhere I read "Your present plans are going to succeed." I am going to take those words to heart realizing that my plans for the continued growth and success for the NJ Chapter cannot be done by one person alone. I along with the rest of the chapter leaders Believe to Achieve.

Welcome to a new year.

Mike Alwell, FHFMA

Letter to Members of HFMA NJ

Tina — Mon, 23 May 2011 19:57:15 GMT

Wow, it's hard to believe this HFMA year and my term as President is coming to an end!

Our Chapter leadership has surely "Stepped Up". At our Leadership Retreat last June, our team, (which consisted of the Board and all Committee Chairs & Co-Chairs, and Laura Hess of course, 40 attended) came up with 4 areas to work on improving during the year:

Certification & Education programs
Future Leaders / Social Networking
Vendor Events
Member Recognition

Well, in these tough economic times, we were able to complete 3 out of 4 of these goals. Under the leadership of our Program Chair, Tracy Davison-DiCanto, the Education Committee created a subcommittee for Certification, led by Lindsey Colombo, to concentrate on a new education series to help members obtain their certification. This year we had over 50 attend, and 17 members achieved certification! Our Education hours increase by more than 1,200 hours or 7% thanks to the Committee Chairs & Co-Chairs and their members! Our Annual Institute in October had 2.5 days of education, with close to 500 attendees.

Our other new committee, Managed Care, has been a great success with executives from the payer and provider community collaborating together to improve health care processes. They had multiple roundtable discussions, and featured speakers from Horizon BCBS, Aetna and Qualcare presenting on ACO's and Garfunkle Wild & Travis, P.C. and Aetna presenting on Out-of-Network issues. Their focus was "to create a constructive, open venue for honest discussions of relevant managed care issues, at a high level…" and thanks to Elizabeth Jennings and Joe Privitera they are accomplishing just that!

Mike Ruiz de Somocurcio "Stepped Up" and established our new Sponsorship Committee, to ensure we identify ways to recognize and provide value to our sponsors. I personally thank all of our sponsors for their continued support of our chapter, and encourage them to participate in this committee.

With the help of Mike Alwell, the Board approved a new policy for Member Recognition, which allows us to give back to our volunteers. For members who achieve awards for exceptional service, significantly contribute to the chapter winning a Yerger, achieve certification or earn any HFMA National Founders Awards, they will be given passes to our Annual Institute. See the article in this issue of FOCUS for more detail. The Board of Directors may now attend all Quarterly Education Sessions for free. Member satisfaction survey for the last 4 years went from 58% to 69% and now 71%. The Board is continuing to look for ways to give back to our members who "StepUp"!

As far as Future Leaders and Social Networking, we are still working on that one, although John Manzi and Dotti Lindstrom brought John Brault and Tracy Davison-DiCanto onto our Board as "Future Leaders/Associate Board Members" 5 & 6 years ago, and now they are both Officers, so I guess we are doing something right! The generational energy and ideas are raising the bar each year! The Membership Services & Networking committee had several events this year, combining education, membership opportunities with golf & bowling! Congratulations to all of them.

I encourage all of you to renew your membership today, take advantage of the benefits HFMA and the New Jersey Chapter have to offer. Continued education programs, learn and share best practices, networking opportunities, personal and professional growth! Get involved, you'll soon have good friends for life!

I humbly thank the Officers, Mike Alwell, John Brault and Dave Weissel, all the Board Directors, NJHA and all the Committee Chairs, Co-Chairs and members for their ongoing spirit, support and for Stepping Up to make the New Jersey Chapter the best! Finally, we are fortunate to have Laura Hess on our team; she keeps us on a path to continued success.

I wish Mike Alwell, our incoming President, and his team continued success. The National Chair's theme, (Greg Adams from NJ of course!) is "Believe to Achieve", appropriate in this healthcare environment, do more with less! This year we not only have Greg at the National HFMA level, but also Cheryl Cohen as Regional Executive, Joe Dobosh & Sean Hopkins on the National Advisory Council (NAC), Rick Parker on the CAT team, Jeff Schaub and Stella Visaggio on the Principles and Practices Board; New Jersey is making a difference!

Respectfully,

Mary T. Taylor, MBA, FHFMA

Hot off the press and just in time: This year the New Jersey Chapter will receive the following awards:

The Robert M. Shelton Award for Sustained Excellence over 5 years (see the letter from the editor for the history of this prestigious award in Focus)
C.Henry Hottum Award for Educational Performance Improvement
John M. Stagl Silver Award for Excellence for Education
Bronze Award of Excellence for Membership Growth and Retention
Gold Award for Excellence for Certification
Helen M. Yerger Special Recognition Awards (4) for Individual Chapter
Helen M. Yerger Special Recognition Award for Multi-Chapter w/ Metro Philadelphia

Welcome to the new 2010-2011 NJ HFMA Chapter year!

Tina — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 21:21:48 GMT

HFMA National Chair Debora Kuchka-Craig has chosen "Step Up" as her theme for the new year beginning June 1, 2010 through May 30, 2011. I embrace this theme, as Stepping UP to Make it Happen is what HFMA does best with its amazing volunteers. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. These words can serve as encouragement to us all, considering Healthcare Reform may have us going in circles!

This year comes with many challenges for the financial executives within our healthcare institutions. These executives will continue to look to us, as stated in Sect.1.2 of our bylaws, to: (vi) cooperate with healthcare institutions and related healthcare organizations and agencies… (vii) establish and promulgate principles relative to financial management; (viii) promote and encourage financial management standards of performance … (ix) undertake research in financial management related to these objectives. Our Chapter will continue to be proactive in policy planning and regulations in New Jersey. We have already created a sub-committee of the Regulatory & Reimbursement Committee to review and present education on Healthcare Reform and the impact that these reforms will have on healthcare institutions, consumers, employers and payers.

I am also very excited about our new Managed Care Committee/Forum, whose co-chairs Elizabeth Jennings from Magnacare and Joe Privitera from Holy Name Medical Center and their members, are all executives from the Payer and Provider managed care community. Their mission is "to create a constructive, open venue for honest discussions of relevant managed care issues, at a high level, thereby giving both providers and payers an opportunity to more fully understand the issues at hand, as well as each others’' perspective and ultimately collaborate in finding and implementing meaningful solutions". It is time for better collaboration between all healthcare entities to ensure continued quality improvement and positive outcomes - clinically, operationally and financially.

I want to congratulation Brian Sherin for the tremendous job he did this past year as President. Under his leadership the Chapter received 8 Awards of Excellence from National HFMA: Henry Hottom Award for Educational Performance Improvement, John M. Stagl Silver Award for Excellence for Education, Gold Award for Excellence for Membership Growth and Retention and 5 Yerger Awards submitted by various committees. Brian and his team worked hard to give our members outstanding education programs. I strongly encourage all of you to StepUp and join a committee, get involved, network, share ideas, learn and have fun! We will also be looking into Member Recognition programs/awards/education events as a means of giving back to the volunteers of this great Chapter. Our education program on September 16 at the Woodbridge Hilton will be packed full of valuable information regarding the regulatory and coding changes coming our way, don’t miss the event! Also mark your calendars for our 34th Annual Institute, October 20-22, 2010 at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. This is a two and a half day event, which provides high quality education and workshops plus great networking opportunities, I hope to see you there! In closing, I am truly humbled and honored to represent the New Jersey Chapter. I will do my best to keep the momentum going, which I could not do without our outstanding Leadership Team. A special thanks to my employer, Southern Ocean County Hospital, a member of Meridian Health and Rick Hand, who allows me this time and opportunity to serve you.

Respectfully,

Mary T. Taylor, MBA, FHFMA

President's Message

Tina — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:15:14 GMT

As we wind our way through the holidays and approach the New Year, we all eagerly anticipate an improved economic outlook. The last year has been a challenge for all of us and our Chapter has made every effort to provide a wide range of educational opportunities to the membership to help navigate the troubled waters that we have been experiencing. I hope that you have been able to take advantage of these and I encourage you to monitor our Chapter website and the weekly Pulse email to see upcoming events.

We are nearly half way through the Chapter year and we will continue to be dedicated to providing excellent educational forums into 2010. Our next quarterly meeting will take place during the second week of January and will once again be a joint effort with the NJ Chapter of AAHAM, with the Patient Financial Services and Patient Access committees taking the lead on the HFMA side. Come join your peers for our largest quarterly meeting of the year. In addition, a Medicare Cost Report seminar will also be offered in January and a session addressing the numerous implications of ICD-10 will take place in the Spring. The March quarterly meeting will take place on March 9, 2010. The always popular annual HFMA Golf Outing is scheduled for May 13, 2010. Mark your calendars now.

I want to take this opportunity to thank our 2009 Institute Committee Co-Chairs, Tony Consoli and Deb Shapiro, as well as the entire Institute Committee, for an incredible job in putting together this excellent three-day event which took place in October. With its mix of varied educational programming and networking venues, the Institute received wonderful reviews, and rightfully so. Our Institute is something to be proud of in that it is one for the premiere events offered by any Chapter of HFMA in the country. I also want to extend a grateful thank you to all of our participating sponsors, speakers and vendors who provided both financial and intellectual support. Without each of them our Institute would not be possible. To all those who attended, your participation is greatly appreciated and we hope to see you back next year.

All of our Committees and Forums continue to meet to support the Chapter, provide an environment for the sharing of industry information and develop timely educational programs. Those volunteers that administer our committees deserve thanks from all of us for their commitment of time and effort. To make the most of your membership I encourage you to participle in a committee of most interest to you (see the Chapter website http://www.hfmanj.org for more info). I guarantee that you will benefit from the learning and networking you will enjoy through committee participation.

Our Membership Committee continues to work towards growing, and expanding the breadth of, our membership. Top notch educational sessions that are free to members, and offered to non-members at low registration fees which include membership for the remainder of the Chapter year, have been provided and will continue to be offered. These sessions are a terrific way for non-members to get to know us. I ask for your support in spreading the word about the value of HFMA membership to your friends and coworkers in the industry. No other national organization offers the benefits to healthcare finance professionals as does HFMA. This, coupled with the fact that the NJ Chapter continues to excel in serving its membership, provides for a prime opportunity to meet the professional educational and growth needs of healthcare finance professionals. Talk it up and encourage non-members to check us out.

Thanks to you for being a member of the New Jersey Chapter of HFMA. Each and every member enhances our organization and makes us stronger. I wish you the best and happiest of holidays and a New Year comprised of progress and accomplishment.

Brian P. Sherin, MBA, FHFMA
President of the New Jersey Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association

Making it Count

Tina — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:58:49 GMT

Welcome to the 2009-2010 Chapter year! In preparing to write this letter I reflected back on the many years during which I have been involved with the New Jersey Chapter of HFMA. From being a committee member, the chair of several committees, a speaker at numerous events, a Director on the Board and eventually an Officer and now President, it has been a wonderful experience each step along the way. HFMA has afforded me the chance to learn, meet hundreds of people and make some lifelong friends. I am honored to be able to serve as President of our Chapter and I appreciate the opportunity that all of you have given me to do so. Together we will keep our Chapter moving forward, continuing to meet the needs of our membership.

First, let me give a hearty congratulation to our immediate Past President, Joe Dobosh, on an exceptional year for our Chapter. Not only did we achieve all possible points on the Chapter Balanced Scorecard administered by National, we also received three individual and one multi-chapter Yerger Awards, a bronze award for Excellence in Education, the Henry Hottum award for Educational Performance Improvement, the silver Award of Excellence for Certification and a bronze Award of Excellence for Member Growth and Retention. This is quite a record that Joe and his entire team achieved. They all deserve a round of applause for their hard work and dedication.

For those of you who are not fully active in the Chapter I strongly encourage you to consider all of the possibilities for involvement. This can be as simple as attending a quarterly meeting or the Annual Institute or becoming a member of one of the many committees and forums that are offered. I can attest to the fact that being active in the Chapter is one of the best, if not the best, way to meet your peers, develop strong and valuable networking ties, and gain a greater understanding of what is going on in our industry. In fact, the theme of the new HFMA national Chair, Catherine Jacobson, is "Making it Count" and this aptly applies to your membership. Take advantage of all that the NJ Chapter and National HFMA have to offer. Make your membership count!

These are tough times for the economy as a whole and healthcare in New Jersey. Our Chapter is not immune to the challenges faced by providers and other healthcare related businesses. We need your support now more than ever and, if I may be so bold, there has never been a more appropriate time for each one of us to seek all of the knowledge and support that can come from immersing yourself in the activities of our Chapter. We provide excellent educational and networking opportunities close to home thereby minimizing many of the costs associated with trips to far away destinations. Mark your calendars for these upcoming events:

September Quarterly, September 8th, Woodbridge Hilton
Annual Institute, October 14 – 16th, Borgata Hotel, Atlantic City

In an effort to assist our membership with planning for the educational programming for the year we will be publishing the education calendar as much in advance as possible. This information will be easily accessible on the Chapter website so keep an eye out for the following events: Advanced Financial Management Webinar Series, which will occur on the Fourth Thursday of every month, Personal Finance Dinner Workshops, North/South free education sessions and the Basic Financial Management Series.

I am excited about this Chapter year even though Joe and his team have set the bar very high. Our objectives this year will be to offer more and improved educational offerings, focus on membership growth and retention, increase participation in the certification program and, most importantly, continue the high level of member satisfaction we have accomplished in the past. I feel confident that our entire leadership team, including committee chairs and co-chairs, committee members and the entire Board, will meet the challenge. We welcome and encourage your participation at all levels and, most of all, thank you for your continued support. Don’t forget, the key objective for all of us is, Making it Count. Hope to see you soon.

Brian P. Sherin, MBA, FHFMA
President of the New Jersey Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association

Making Connections

Tina Lee — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:00:08 GMT

HFMA National Chairman Bob Broadway has chosen "Making Connection" as his theme for the upcoming year beginning June 2008 through May 2009. I am embracing that theme as well for our Chapter as I believe we always need to make that connection. As the healthcare industry begins to shrink, we need to continually keep up with the hot topics and network with our colleagues. I have been a member of HFMA for nearly 30 years and have made friends with great people whom I know I can consult with on any issue.

I encourage you to join committees and take full advantage of your membership. By participating, it will help develop you into a leader and enhance your career's success. Your involvement is just a phone call away. Begin as a committee member and then perhaps volunteer the following year as a Chair or Co-Chair. All of the current committee chairs and co-chairs are always looking for members to join and share their talents to help make the Chapter an overall success. The best way to make connections with peers and experts in the healthcare field today is through active participation within NJ HFMA.

All of our committee members work diligently coordinating monthly or quarterly educational sessions, writing position papers on hot topics, recruiting members to join our chapter, planning social events, producing our FOCUS newsletter, helping members get certified and keeping our website updated and in vogue.

The New Jersey website has undergone a facelift and we will continue to enhance the look and the available tools on it for our membership. Within this website, you will find critical information, such as listings of all educational events, chapter membership, forum/committee meeting schedules and the job bank. I encourage you to utilize it as often as possible.

With YOU, HFMA NJ will continue to expand upon the successes of the past as we move into the future. Thank you for this opportunity to serve you and ask you to embrace the theme "Making Connections" and do your part to maintain our Chapter's success.

Joseph J. Dobosh, MBA
President of the New Jersey Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association