Because most decisions made at HFMA are centered around members, investments made in our new membership model and digital platform allowed us to provide members with easy access to the most relevant and critical COVID-19 material, education and certifications, and admission to our Digital Annual Conference 2020.
Just over a year ago, HFMA launched its all-access membership model, providing you with unlimited digital content that includes certifications, online education, news and the ability to personalize your own webpage on hfma.org. At the same time, we launched our new website in support of the new model.
These changes were made because of member feedback. Lots of it. In fact, most decisions made at HFMA are centered around members. During my in-person office meetings (well, at least when they were held in a pre-pandemic world), I typically set a chair at the table to represent you — the member. It’s true.
We couldn’t have seen it coming then, but the investment made in the new model and digital platform allowed us to provide members with easy access to the most relevant and critical COVID-19 material during the crisis. It also served as the springboard to a 700% increase in the number of certifications earned in the first half of 2020 compared with the first half of 2019. It’s exciting to see so many members are showing off their newly earned digital badges on LinkedIn.
As your organizations pivoted and made changes amid a transformed world, so did we.
For example, the 2020 Annual Conference was quickly reimagined and redesigned to deliver a virtual meeting program that would ensure the safety of our members while delivering the critical and meaningful information that will help inform your decision-making processes. And it was made free to all members. More than 2,300 members signed up for 11,000 sessions within three weeks of registration opening.
In addition, to further alleviate some of the fiscal and cash flow struggles many members have been experiencing, HFMA’s team of IT professionals worked tirelessly to give you the option to pay your annual dues on a monthly basis versus upfront full payment. Hundreds of members are taking advantage of this option.
During the peak of the pandemic, many of you flocked to the new, interactive online HFMA community to ask questions of one another, collectively solve problems and share your best ideas when it came to dealing with COVID-19 payment and reimbursement issues.
And because your challenges never cease, we aren’t slowing down. As our CEO Joe Fifer recently shared, your challenges are our mission. That’s why going forward, HFMA is bringing you:
- Additional distance meeting opportunities, including the upcoming Revenue Cycle Conference
- Delivery of hfm magazine in a contemporary digital format via an online e-edition and mobile app, new this month
- An overhauled learning management system to improve the user experience
I invite you to share your ideas and feedback with me at any time — the good, the bad and the ugly. Certainly, we all appreciate high fives and kudos comments, but there is lots of value in critical, constructive feedback — it lets us know how else we can improve.
