February 24, 2022
The bill, authored by Rep. Cedrick Frazier, (DFL-New Hope), establishes payments of $1,500 to qualifying workers in fields such as healthcare, long-term care, EMS, public health, child care, schools, food service, retail, maintenance and security, public transit, and corrections.
The employees must have been employed for at least 120 hours between March 2020 and June 2021. They must also meet income requirements—for healthcare workers, incomes below $175,000 for a single person or $350,000 for a couple, and for non-healthcare workers, incomes below $85,000 for a single person or $185,000 for a couple.
In an earlier version of the bill the healthcare workers excluded physicians. While many physicians wouldn’t qualify because of the income limits, the exclusion also applied to residents and fellows in training. Frazier amended the bill to remove this exclusion. All healthcare workers are now included.
The Senate version of the bill, SF 2650, authored by Sen. Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul), is still awaiting a hearing in committee. While there is a commitment from both bodies to provide funding for the frontline worker payments, there is not yet agreement on how broad the definition of frontline worker should be or how much total money should be allocated to the payment pool.
October 23, 2025
The MMA, along with the University of Minnesota Medical School, will hold a virtual physician forum on November 5 at noon on “Health Professions Education and Minnesota's Rural Health Workforce.”
October 23, 2025
AMA staff have confirmed that, as of October 21, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has guided Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) to lift their temporary holds on Medicare fee-for-service claims impacted by provisions that expired on October 1 – including all Medicare fee-for-service claims in Minnesota.
October 23, 2025
For the second time in eight weeks, national grief expert David J. Schonfeld, MD, FAAP, visited Minneapolis. The first trip was days after the Annunciation Catholic Church and School shooting when he met with school leaders to help with the healing process. He returned October 21 to revisit the school and to meet with local healthcare providers at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) to offer tips on dealing with the aftermath of crisis.