President’s Message

Dear HFMA South Texas Chapter Colleagues, I am honored to serve as President of the South Texas Chapter for the 2016-2017 year. I want to thank the membership for the privilege of leading the chapter this year. I also want to thank outgoing President, Clint Owen, for his dedication and innovative ideas over the last year. Clint has set some very high standards, demonstrating what it takes to lead with passion and commitment. As a testament to Clint’s and last year’s board’s leadership the South Texas Chapter was awarded four awards at last month’s ANI Annual Chapter Awards Dinner — A Multi-Chapter award for the Region 9 networking event; A John M. Stagl Silver Award of Excellence for education; A Bronze Award of Excellence for membership growth and retention and a Helen M. Yerger Award for membership. As our new year begins the one thing that stays constant is change! Our chapter has, and will continue, to make significant changes to ensure we deliver — what you — our members need to be successful both personally and professionally. With a strong board, officer team and committee volunteer base, I am confident we will continue to be an indispensable resource for our membership. I am excited to tell you about a couple of new offerings: We now have a South Texas Chapter smartphone app! The app will enable you to communicate with chapter members and get real time/interactive information from the chapter. You can search the app stores for “hfma south texas.” Please install the application onto your smart phone as soon as possible. Also, if you haven’t yet listened to any of the new podcasts that HFMA has, please do so! You can shop for the HFMA Podcast series within the podcast app that is likely already on your phone. They’re awesome, under 30 minutes and released once a month. The third one is just now out there. The agenda is usually an industry topic of discussion, something regulatory and then something HFMA related. Every year the National Chair rolls out a theme he or she believes summarizes their leadership mindset. During this year’s Leadership Training Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Mary Mirabelli, 2016-2017 National Chair, announced her theme, “Thrive.” Mirabelli said, “HFMA members and their organizations should not settle for merely surviving during these challenging times but should THRIVE.” As we begin the year, I ask all of you for your ideas and thoughts to help us fulfill our commitment to our chapter. We are over 300 members strong and have the resources to stay at the forefront of the issues facing healthcare finance today. There is an opportunity for each of you to get involved, join a committee and insure that our chapter continues to THRIVE. One thing that has not changed, is your chapter’s commitment to providing high quality education combined with more networking opportunities, all while having a good time along the way. I look forward to seeing everyone at our upcoming events: The South Texas Chapter of HFMA along with the Central Texas Chapter of ACHE will be holding our 2016 Summer Institute at the Seton Administration Offices, in Austin, Texas, on Thursday, Aug. 25. Saturday, Sept. 10, the South Texas Chapter of HFMA will host a Top Golf networking event in San Antonio. The South Texas Chapter of HFMA along with the Texas Association for Healthcare Financial Administration (TAHFA) will be holding our 2016 Joint Fall Symposium at the Embassy Suites Riverwalk in San Antonio on Sept. 12-13. You can register for all events on our website www.stxhfma.org. Thank you to our sponsors for making it possible to host these types of programs. I look forward to meeting each of you at our upcoming events. Sincerely, David W. Korn President