Fifth place winner: Georgia
Georgia MGMA Strategic Plan 2021-2022After all the curve balls and changes that 2020 threw at us, Georgia MGMA was determined to “Get
Back in the Game” for 2021. In order to do that, we focused on getting back to the things that make our
association and our members successful but attempting to approach them in way different from the
past. Our main focus revolved around increasing our membership through both traditional and nontraditional methods focusing on ways that are low to no cost.
Maintaining and increasing membership is a growing problem for all MGMA state affiliates driven by
practice consolidation, competing associations and decreasing practice revenues that cause hard looks
at what expenses are incurred. GMGMA took a three-pronged approach to attempt to reverse
nationwide trends of membership decreases, an increased focus on increasing non-state members via
the dual membership program with MGMA, broaden our focus on who we target for membership
creating a new program in an attempt to get our business partners to be our “sales team” day to day.
Year over year, we saw a membership increase of 10%!
GMGMA has been a partner with MGMA since the start of the dual membership program. Each month
we email those national members that are not state members that have their national renewal upcoming. We have made a business decision to offer our state membership at a rate that allows members to add a Georgia membership “for free” by reducing our dues to a level that, when combined with the discount that national provides, allows the member to pay the same amount as they would for a national only membership. For 2021 we had 30 national members add a state membership!
In an attempt to recruit members outside of those we’ve targeted frequently in the past, we have
restarted a program with the Medical Association of Georgia where we exchange contact lists that has
been dormant for many years. Our goal is to reach out to those physicians and executives that control
purchasing decisions and educate them on the value a MGMA membership provides and encouraging
them to sign up their staff.
During 2021, our Executive Director, Elaine Cook, has focused on increasing our reach across social
media, working to get us as much “free” advertising as possible. One of her biggest successes was
taking our Linkedin account from 100 followers to over 900!! She’s focused on consistently posting,
hounding the board to actively engage with posts and interacting with our business partners to increase
awareness across the platform.
During our November Board meeting, we took dedicated time to discuss innovative ways to increase
membership while not increasing actual day-to-day costs. One item that was approved and
implemented was allowing our business partners to sign up unlimited new members for a heavily
discounted rate. The goal is to have business partners leverage their relationships (and finances) to help
us increase membership. The business partner will help increase total membership and the new
members could potentially be strong advocates for the business partner during meetings, on the list
serve, etc.
We have also voted as a Board to permit business partners to nominate and vote on an individual from
their group to represent their voice at board meetings in an effort to increase engagement and retention.