Members Only | 02.10.25
Editor’s Message: NAMSS Welcomes 2025 With New Initiatives and Opportunities
By Alison Webster, MBA, CPCS, CPMSM, CPHQ, FMSP
Alison Webster
It is exciting times for NAMSS, and I’m honored to be serving this year as your 2025 President-Elect and Chair of the new Publications Committee. 2024 was a year of growth for our organization, so I wanted to take a deeper dive and remind members of several initiatives that were highlighted in the recent Gateway article, “A Look Back at NAMSS in 2024”, which are now being rolled out.
New NAMSS Certification: Certified Provider Enrollment Specialist (CPES)
As a reminder, we’re excited to launch our third certification this year, the CPES: Certified Provider Enrollment Specialist. The first exams will be offered in October 2025. The candidate handbook is available now and contains all of the necessary information about the CPES exam. The new CPES prep course and study guide will be available in July. For those eligible, why not set a goal of becoming triple certified?!
Updated NAMSS Mission, Vision, and Values
Following approximately five months of work by our dedicated Mission, Vision, and Values Task Force, NAMSS now has brand new mission and vision statements as well as stated core values. I was honored to participate in the Mission, Vision, and Values Task Force and can attest to the thoughtful discussion and consideration of a diverse range of perspectives gathered from both internal and external stakeholders. Most importantly, we wanted to ensure that our Provider Enrollment Professionals felt included. I believe the final statements are thoughtful, inclusive, innovative, and truly reflect who we are and where we want to go as an organization. Check out the new statements here.
Launch of 3 New Committees
The Board approved three new committees which will help provide greater oversight and strategic guidance as we work toward implementing the NAMSS strategic plan established in June 2024. This also creates more opportunities for our members who are looking to get involved with NAMSS and has created approximately 16 new volunteer opportunities in 2025.
For the past four years, the DEI Task Force has done great work in promoting and celebrating DEI initiatives, identifying member demographics, and promoting an inclusive environment for all members. Through the member demographics, this is how we clearly identified that more than half our membership is over the age of 50 and the need to engage our next-gen MSPs. In recognition of this ongoing and important work, and that NAMSS still has much DEI work to do, we are transitioning the DEI Task Force to a standing committee. Moving forward, DEI Committee members will also serve as non-officio members of other crucial committees to ensure we’re applying an inclusivity lens to all that we do. The DEI Committee is chaired by James Frieberg, MBA, CPMSM, CPCS.
The Mentoring Committee is being created out of need. This committee will manage all of our mentorship and leadership succession planning activities, including providing one-on-one mentorship to NAMSS members. They’ll oversee the Tomorrow’s Leaders program, take over the management of the speaker development program — which is offered to first-time conference presenters — and will manage the NAMSS mentor-matching program. This committee will replace the Leadership Development Work Group. The Mentoring Committee is chaired by Amy Ligocki, CPCS, CPMSM.
The NAMSS President-Elect (yes, that’s me this year!) serves as the editor-in-chief of Gateway and has historically managed all of our content alongside the NAMSS staff team. As we continue to grow our content, the new Publications Committee will help ensure we’re representing the many points of view of the NAMSS membership and that we’re engaging with new and diverse authors and podcast guests. The President-Elect chairs the committee and continues to serve as editor-in-chief but will now have support and insight from others. I’m grateful for the additional support of this committee, and we welcome all thoughts and suggestions. Or, feel free to submit an article on a topic of interest.
If you want to learn more about these new committees, as well as other NAMSS Committees, this information can be found on the Volunteer Leaders section of the NAMSS website.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t recognize that January 2025 has been a tough month, filled with uncertainly and challenges for many. As MSPs and Provider Enrollment Professionals, we are used to both challenge and change. Let’s keep a positive attitude, be kind to each other, and stay excited for the great work being done by NAMSS volunteers and members.