Members Only | 01.23.24
NAMSS 2023 Year in Review
By Kirsten Shaffer, CAE
The beginning of a new year is always an exciting time for NAMSS. Our new Board and committee members begin their terms; we restart the clock on membership, education, and certification; and we gear up for a full year of service to you, our members. But before we move full steam ahead into tackling our ambitious goals for 2024, let’s take a moment to celebrate our 2023 success.
2023 was a fantastic year for NAMSS. We’re recovering nicely from the past few years of upheaval, we have exciting plans for the future, and we have a fully engaged, forward-thinking Board of Directors who are committed to our members and to the MSP industry. I am proud of our progress and optimistic about our future.
Tomorrow’s MSP®
When NAMSS released the Tomorrow’s MSP® report in late 2019, we knew the healthcare industry and world were rapidly changing and that MSPs needed to be prepared to meet the challenges. That is more true now than ever, and the Tomorrow’s MSP campaign continues to drive NAMSS’ path forward and inform our goals to educate and transform MSPs to be well prepared to navigate a complex healthcare environment. There are several Tomorrow’s MSP resources available on the NAMSS website, and I hope you refer to them often.
In 2023, we released a new tool. The NAMSS Tomorrow's MSP Self-Assessment is designed to help you assess your current career milestones and discover areas of strengths and development. At the end of the Self-Assessment, you will receive a personalized report that can support your journey to becoming Tomorrow's MSP® ... today! Take advantage of the easy-to-navigate NAMSS Education Zone to brush up on any of the skillsets identified as needing development. And when you take the self-assessment and score highly in any of the areas, I hope you will consider ways in which you can give back to the profession and educate others. Consider submitting an abstract for our 2024 conference, penning an article for Gateway or Synergy, or offering to host a webinar. If you are interested in any of these opportunities, please reach out to me or any member of the Board of Directors.
Gold Standard Education
Education remains a top priority for the NAMSS Board, and we were pleased to again offer top-notch educational opportunities in 2023. We continued our robust schedule of education, hosting 13 live webinars about a wide variety of topics with more than 6,000 registrations. Remember, your NAMSS membership offers you 12 free webinars per calendar year — a $900 value!
We also offered nine virtual and four in-person courses. Our live, instructor-led courses, the CPCS® Preparation Course, CPMSM® Preparation Course, Credentialing 101, Credentialing 201, and the Leadership Certificate Program, provided in-depth education in various topics and at various levels to 516 students in 2023. Our education calendar is just as robust for 2024, so be sure to mark your calendar and plan to participate in one of our best-in-class offerings. If you prefer to study independently or if you’re just getting started, check out our on-demand course offerings and digital study guides.
We were also pleased to offer our third annual Provider Enrollment Series with six sessions designed to cover all aspects of provider enrollment. These sessions are wonderful opportunities for MSPs who know “nothing” about provider enrollment to dip their toes in the water. The series exceeded registration expectations and received rave reviews. The session recordings are still available for purchase. We also released a new resource: the Provider Enrollment Glossary.
And finally, we completed a comprehensive review and update of the NAMSS Comparison of Accreditation Standards, as well as released a brand new resource, the MSP New Hire Onboarding Checklist. The checklist is offered as a free benefit for NAMSS members!
I want to thank each of our instructors, webinar presenters, and committee members who worked tirelessly in 2023 to provide outstanding education.
NAMSS Conference
Our 2023 annual conference in Orlando, Florida, was a success by any measure! We welcomed more than 2,000 attendees both in person and virtually. We had two terrific keynote speakers, celebrated our annual award winners, enjoyed networking and socializing, and participated in more than 70 educational sessions.
While our conference has remained an industry staple and a well-attended event, the NAMSS Board recognized the importance of moving the conference into the future and making investments to ensure it remains the “must-attend” event in our industry. In the last quarter of 2023, the Board engaged a consultant to conduct a thorough analysis of our conference and make recommendations for the future. The Board and staff team are very excited to begin implementing their recommendations, and we look forward to rolling out a few surprises at our 48th Educational Conference and Exhibition in Denver, taking place Sept. 29–Oct. 2, 2024. We hope to see you there!
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The DEI Task Force hosted Celebrate Diversity Month in April with a webinar (Why DEI? Cultural Awareness, Sensitivity, and Belonging for MSPs), a podcast (A DEI Month Roundtable Discussion), and a Gateway article (Meet Claudia Elmore: Winner of the 2021 Empowering Tomorrow's MSP® Scholarship). They also hosted a conference session and some networking opportunities on-site in Orlando, as well as started a “what we’re celebrating” email series, providing education about cultural and heritage celebrations. They also continue to update the awesome resources provided on the NAMSS website.
NAMSS Advocacy and Industry Relations
Our Government Relations team worked with The Joint Commission to develop a toolkit to help MSPs navigate a three-year reappointment schedule. This resource is available on the NAMSS website as a members-only benefit.
NAMSS hosted its ninth annual NAMSS Roundtable in September 2023 to continue stakeholder discussions about improving processes for measuring practitioner quality. NAMSS’ 2023 Roundtable, the Role of Practitioner Measurements in Guiding Performance, focused on how the processes organizations use to assess practitioner quality affect performance, culture, and patient outcomes. This topic stemmed from discussions during NAMSS’ 2022 Roundtable, Standardizing Quality: Best Practices for Measuring Practitioner Competency, which emphasized the critical role that organizations’ quality programs have in providing meaningful quality measurement. NAMSS looks forward to continuing discussions around best practices for measuring practitioner quality and ways MSPs can help organizations adhere to these practices.
The GR Team also continues to work closely with the SOC Task Force to be prepared for the Department of Labor’s call for revisions to the Standard Occupation Classification, which we anticipate being released in 2024. NAMSS will do all we can to ensure that MSPs are recognized as a unique profession.
State Leadership Conference
In February 2023, we held our virtual state leadership conference with leaders from 48 state affiliates in attendance. Topics included Board Orientation Best Practices; Juggling Home, Work, and Association Management; Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable; Building Tomorrow’s MSP®; and a review of the book “Think Again” by Adam Grant. We value the opportunity to gather and celebrate our state leaders each year and look forward to our 2024 State Leadership conference at the end of February.
Certification
NAMSS certifications are the only NCCA accredited certifications for the medical services profession. In 2023, 195 MSPs earned their CPCS® certification and 97 MSPs earned their CPMSM® certification. They joined our 3,872 CPCS and 1,781 CPMSM certified MSPs. Congratulations to them for their commitment and dedication!
Membership
We ended the year with just over 5,600 members and welcomed more than 900 new members in 2023. This is our fourth consecutive year with an overall growth, pointing to the value of membership and NAMSS resources for MSPs.
Thank you to our incredible volunteers who work so hard all year. The work of NAMSS could not be accomplished without their dedication and expertise. And thank you to everyone who has engaged with NAMSS this year and all the years prior. We look forward to continuing to serve you. 2024 is going to be a great year!