How does your support staff size stack up?
MGMA survey chock full of data
If you’re looking for numbers to justify your request for extra support staff, the recently released annual compensation and reimbursement survey from the Englewood, CO-based Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) may give you just the ammo you need. It also can show you how your practice stands up against the national norm for group practices in five key operational areas.
The results in a nutshell: The most efficiently run group practices have more full-time staff supporting each physician than the typical practice. Practices identified as "better practices" are ones that generate more medical revenue per physician, have stronger physician compensation, and have lower operating costs as a percentage of medical revenue per physician.
The study, which included responses from 353 multispecialty practices, looked at five key areas:
• total full-time support staff per full-time physician;
• total net medical revenue per full-time physician (see chart below for a breakout by percentile of charges and revenue per physician);
• total cost per full-time physician;
• total operating cost as a percent of total net medical revenue;
• operating cost per nonsurgical procedures performed at a practice.
The MGMA survey also examined fee schedules and other reimbursement mechanisms of physician practices (see story on p. 188 for details).
Here are some highlights from the study:
• The median full-time employed (FTE) support staff per FTE physician was 4.68 for all practices, and 5.06 for better-performing practices.
• Net medical revenue per FTE physician averaged $445,915 for all practices and $520,813 for better-performing practices.
• Total compensation per FTE physician averaged $196,620 for all practices and $224,597 for better-performing practices.
• Operating cost as a percentage of total net medical revenue averaged 56.02% for all practices and 51.45% for better-performing practices.
• Operating cost per non-surgical procedures performed inside the practice facility averaged $29.98 for all practices and $23.05 for better-performing practices.
You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content