Congratulations to all of our recent award recipients! Our chapter had a great time celebrating them recently at the UMass Club. Are you curious as to how people win our merit awards? Read on!
Information on the HFMA National Founders Merit Award Program
The Founders Award program is a personal incentive program designed to encourage, monitor, and recognize individual volunteer involvement in HFMA. The program provides an equitable way to translate activities into points. Over time, it will measure member involvement by looking at a collected number of points to determine how active an individual member is in HFMA.
The Founders Merit Award program was established in 1960 by HFMA to recognize the importance of individual members and the contributions they make to HFMA, on both the chapter and national levels. Points are accumulated according to the level of activity an individual holds, thereby encouraging members to participate in HFMA functions and to hold leadership roles within the organization.
The Awards
Four (4) awards can be obtained based on the point system.
The Follmer Bronze Award is awarded to an individual who has earned 25 member points. The award is named after William G. Follmer, who established the American Association of Hospital Accountants (AAHA) (now HFMA).
The Reeves Silver Award is awarded to an individual who has earned 50 member points. This award honors Robert H. Reeves, an organizing member of AAHA who was elected its president in 1956.
The third award is presented to a member who has earned 75 member points. The Muncie Gold Award honors Fredrick T. Muncie, who was an organizing member of the AAHA and the first president of the association (1947-49).
A fourth award, the Founders Medal of Honor, was added in 1986 and is conferred by nomination of the member’s Chapter Board of Directors. This award recognizes individuals who have been involved in the association for at least three years after earning the Muncie Gold Award, have provided significant service at the chapter and/or national level in at least two of those years, and remain members in good standing.
How can I earn points?
Members can earn points by: volunteering in a chapter or national committee; writing an article; mentoring a new member; proctoring a certification exam; speaking at an event; participating on a panel and participating in a chapter or national meeting in a volunteer role. Chapter members can view their Founders points in real time, 24/7 on the HFMA National web site. The chapter’s Founders Contact has the ability to add points 24/7 for individual member activity, although all points earned by members during the fiscal year should be reported to HFMA National by July 1 each year. Once completed, the Founders Contact runs a Founders Award Recipient List, reviews the information, and submits the approved list along with a completed Founders Awards Order Form to HFMA National.
HFMA National will order the awards on behalf of the chapter, and ship them to the chapter president, unless otherwise noted on the order form.
Helpful tools and resources available from HFMA include a PowerPoint presentation and the HFMA Founders Award Merit Award Program Information that describes the program and how points can be earned.
For more information about the Founders Award program, members should contact their chapter’s Founders Contact or Chapter Relations Specialist, at (800) 252-HFMA or chapters@hfma.org.
