Take Back Our FMA - Phase II

Dear Friends and Colleagues;
In my previous e-mail I summarily expressed my concerns about the state of affairs in our FMA.
Ever since I received many e-mails and the overwhelming majority of those responses were POSITIVE and SUPPORTIVE. I want to thank all of those who have come forward with their concerns and am grateful and honored to call you my friends. I forgive those who called for my immediate resignation from all FMA positions or cautioned me to keep my mouth shut. Obviously, I won't follow their "advice" but look forward working with them in the future cognizant of the fact that we can agree to disagree.
I also had the opportunity to speak with past and present senior FMA leaders and listened to their point of views and reaction to my opinions expressed
Based on all of the above and on the input provided by so many of you I can only reach the following conclusions:

1. The FMA leadership is embroiled in an intractable battle with its political action committee (FLAMPAC). Its a typical case of the " tail wags the dog" syndrome.This situation has to be remedied immediately! We elected our FMA leaders to lead the organization and NOT the FLAMPAC Board !
2. The termination of our EVP Sandy Mortham has been planned and executed by a small group of senior leaders. As a result of the premature termination of her contract the FMA faces ~ $650,000 in total expenditures to buy out her contract, which represent about 10% or our reserve fund. The other option would have been to work with Sandy until the end of her contract, allow her to participate in training a new EVP and to at the end to thank her for her years of dedicated services. I know Sandy for several years and I have the highest respect for her superb performance. Based on all of the responses I received and the facts provided I can only conclude that our Executive Committee and the BOG have violated the principles of their fiduciary responsibility and potentially have caused grave harm to our organization. They have to face the consequences of their actions and the HOD should reach a decision regarding their positions within our organization.
3. The leadership structure and the decision making process is obscured and clouded in secrecy. Several e-mail responses referred to it as follows "Those in leadership have lined themselves up for the FMA Presidency for about the next 6-7 years—and they do it by not challenging anything that anyone else does, no matter how egregious the activity might be.
"....this group does everything in the back room behind closed doors—snipe and gripe. They are unwilling to let their ideas see daylight until they have lined up a group of “yes” people on the BOG..."
4. Policies are not being determined by our FMA HD but the BOG and our leadership. Several e-mails referred to it as follows:
"...In our delegation we were told by leadership that the entire agenda and the leadership in the FMA the next 5 to 10 years has been decided. This was said as if this was a virtue with no understanding on how demoralizing it was to our members. The most common statement was "why am I participating?"

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REMEDY THIS SITUATION? HOW CAN WE TAKE BACK OUR FMA?

1. Our FMA must and will return to the following principles of organizational management:
* Accountability of its leadership
* Transparency of the decision making process
* System of checks and balances and reestablish democratic principles
* NO MORE secret deals and "behind the closed doors" decision-making.
2. Prior to upcoming FMA meeting I call for the introduction of the following resolutions:
* Creation of a Nominating Committee to provide a slate of qualified leadership candidates
* Creation of a committee investigating the circumstances and the impact of our EVP's termination . This committee should be comprised of senior CMS leaders from throughout the State.Current BOG or Executive Members or recent Past Presidents should be excluded.
Committee Task: Taking statements from Executive members, BOG members, review of internal audit committee material, etc.
A report should be generated and submitted to members prior to the HOD meeting. This committee should have top priority, work expeditiously and its recommendation should be binding.

I have initiated this discussion because I love our FMA, recognize its importance as an umbrella organization for doctors in Florida, and have been a humble servant for > 10 years.
But now its time to change and I call upon all of you to take collective responsibility in this herculean effort to reform and restructure our great FMA.
With your support we can achieve it. Each individual member will play an important role in this process and I hope by doing so we can send a signal to many other doctors to join or rejoin the FMA.
I will continue to fight for the interest of our docs in Florida and will continue to serve this organization.
Please help and support each other in this task. Its worthwhile the effort!
Lets TAKE BACK OUR FMA!

Yours truly,

Bernd