Winning business strategies for medical groups

The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has released new data on the business strategies of better performing medical groups in their new Performances and Practices of Successful Medical Groups report.

According to a news release accompanying the report, it highlights the common elements which contribute to success for medical groups and lays out industry benchmarks for financial success, effective work culture, higher job satisfaction, and trust between physicians and administrators.

MGMA evaluated 3,864 organizations who took part in recent MGMA surveys and identified 1,036 which stood above the rest in terms of operations, profitability, productivity, and value. Some of the practices which set these groups apart include:

• Improved operations revenue cycle with better and faster collections and lower accounts receivable.
• Evaluated profitability and productivity by looking at staff and provider output, operating costs, and revenue.
• Identified practices that report quality metrics and value while qualifying as having better performer status in operations, productivity, and profitability.

“The determining criteria that MGMA uses has changed over time to align with how our industry has evolved, and that makes the insights and best practices in this report very timely for our members,” Halee Fischer-Wright, MD, MMM, FAAP, FACMPE, president and CEO of MGMA, says in the release. “To me, one of the clearest takeaways from this report is the number of medical practices that are reporting successful metrics. That is a testament to the level of innovation, creativity and hard work that medical practice professionals are delivering in these challenging times. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to determining superior performance, but the four categories of the Better Performers Report provide the chance to evaluate them on a holistic level.”

While the report is based on 2019 data, MGMA also wanted to gauge what the priorities of medical practices have been since the onset of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. So, in an MGMA Stat Poll performed on Oct. 13 the organization asked practices what their biggest priority was in terms of improving their practice. The responses were:

1. Profitability (31 percent)
2. Operations (30 percent)
3. Productivity (24 percent)
4. Value (11 percent)
5. Other (4 percent)