Happy New Year everyone!  It’s hard to believe we are already in February.  I hope everyone is still keeping up on those New Year’s resolutions!  February means we are down to our final 4 months of the HFMA Chapter year.  This is a busy time for your Chapter leaders as we continue to work to achieve the Chapter goals for this year as well as setting up the leadership team that will take over in June.

Speaking of Chapter leadership, everyone should have received the ballot of candidates for Officer and Board of Director Positions for the upcoming year. Please take the time to cast your votes for these excellent candidates by February 10^th

We continue to work very hard at achieving our goal for total education hours for the chapter although we are currently running a little behind this goal.  I’m confident that the programming we have scheduled for the remainder of the year will get us the hours we need to hit our target, but we can’t do it without the help of the membership.  Please take some time out of your busy schedules to attend one of the many member meetings or committee meetings we have coming up.  Details of these meetings can be found at our Chapter website, www.hfmaemc.org, but here are some highlights of upcoming meetings:

February 21^st at St. John Providence Hospital we will host our CFO Panel where CFO’s from 3 of the leading healthcare systems in our area will share their thoughts on current and emerging challenges for the healthcare community.  The distinguished panel includes Jim Connelly of Henry Ford Health System, Pat McGuire of St. John Providence Health System, and Nick Vitale of Beaumont Health System.

March 22^nd at the Vista Tech Center in Livonia will be our annual Insurance & Reimbursement Update.  This year we will have speakers from Blue Cross, National Government Services and the MHA to give us updates on current reimbursement issues and changes.

The Revenue Cycle and Managed Care Committees will be hosting a joint committee meeting with Healthcare Reform being the main topic of discussion.  Look for exact date and details of this meeting coming soon.

I hope to see many of you at these meetings, but remember, it doesn’t have to be all work and no play…please check out the article later in this issue from Pete Stewart that headlines some of the great social activities we have planned for 2012.

Thanks for your continued support of the Eastern Michigan Chapter.  We have just received our Chapter Survey results and I am happy to announce that 61% of the members who completed surveys gave the Chapter an overall score of “very” or “extremely” satisfied. Thanks to all who took the time to complete the survey. 

One final note…Don’t forget, it’s not too late to become a Certified Healthcare Financial Professional (CHFP). Please see Nancy Rocker’s article on page 9 for more details on this program.

 Hope to see you soon!

 Mark