Restoring Balance to Patient Access and Medical Practice Operations

The need to reinvent and refine the business of medicine and care delivery remains just as strong in the post-pandemic era. While fears of recession ease, healthcare providers still face intense competition for workers as turnover rates remain exceptionally high, suggesting the Great Resignation is still alive across the industry. 

New benchmarks from the 2023 MGMA DataDive Practice Operations survey data set, including nearly 1,000 organizations across specialties and practice types, reveal that medical group practices are rising to the challenge, adjusting their staffing models, optimizing schedules and finding sustainable workflows to continue providing high-quality care while maintaining reasonable access to patients. 

In our new data summary report, Restoring Balance to Patient Access and Medical Practice Operations, key trends and benchmarks from MGMA DataDive are examined through the lines of recent MGMA Stat polling and research, to reveal continued turmoil from employee turnover across healthcare being met with adjustments in workflows to ensure patient access and appointments stay on track. 

Key insights from the report: 

• Turnover rates for front office staff across all practices hit 40% in 2022, while clinical support and business operations support staff turnover rates were 33%.
• Weekend hours took a hit compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, likely a result of ongoing staffing shortages across the industry.
• Workflow improvements and innovations such as telehealth helped time to third next available appointment for new patients — a key patient access metric — drop by half since 2019, from 10 days to only five days in 2022.
• Incentive-based revenues remained stagnant in 2022 for medical groups of all specialties, a sign that value-based care adoption remains slow as organizations struggle to revise staffing models in existing fee-for-service (FFS) arrangements while confronting a competitive market for labor.
• Some quality measures saw a drop in 2022, especially in terms of hospital admission rates and emergency department (ED) utilization rates.

Complete the form on this page for free access to the full summary report. If you’re already an MGMA DataDive subscriber, log in to take advantage of the new data set. 

Click here to learn more about MGMA DataDive Practice Operations.