The Executive Suite: medical practice staffing

Showing posts with label medical practice staffing. Show all posts

Monday, April 14, 2025

The shifting landscape in medical practice staffing

Medical practices have always had to balance patient care needs with the realities of business operations. Yet since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, that balance has grown more precarious. Today, staffing is one of the most pressing challenges faced by practice administrators and physicians. At Physicians Practice, we recently surveyed our audience of medical professionals to gauge the state of staffing, pay, and benefits in 2025. The findings in our 2025 Physicians Practice Staffing & Salary Survey provide a window into where practices are succeeding — and where they continue to struggle — in building and retaining high-functioning teams.

Understaffing persists, even as some practices grow

The most glaring statistic from our survey is that 41% of respondents consider themselves understaffed today—up significantly from 27% who reported understaffing five years ago. Paradoxically, 44% of respondents say they have hired more staff in the past five years, indicating that even a hiring push can fail to keep pace with patient demand and administrative complexity. Meanwhile, 53% feel they are adequately staffed, and only 6% say they are overstaffed.

In looking ahead, the majority (60%) expect their staffing levels to remain the same in 2025, while a third (34%) anticipate bringing on additional employees. This suggests a steady, cautious approach: Practices want to ensure they can handle patient volumes without overstretching budgets or risking layoffs down the line.

Finding qualified people: The single biggest hurdle

When asked about the biggest staffing challenges, an overwhelming 76% of respondents cited finding qualified staff. Although the labor market’s tightness is less acute than in previous years, a significant shortage of skilled professionals continues—particularly in positions requiring specialized clinical or administrative knowledge. Other top concerns include:Increased workload/dual roles(37%),
High staff turnover(20%), and
Lack of professionalism(22%).

These issues echo many of the soft-skill concerns we hear anecdotally from practice managers: how to balance the need for reliable, congenial team players with the reality that some roles (like billers/coders or medical assistants) are in especially high demand.

Despite widely voiced concerns over reimbursement shortfalls, 69% of practices gave staff raises in 2024. Among the 31% that did not, the most frequently cited reason was decreasing reimbursements by payers and patients, highlighting just how central revenue pressures are in dictating compensation decisions. Check out the full report for more detail on what our survey respondents pay specific positions.

Benefits: Stability and modest improvements

Our survey reveals a generally stable benefit structure:

Paid time off (sick days, vacation, personal days) is nearly universal at 92%.
Health insurance is offered by 78% of respondents, followed by retirement plans at 70%, dental at 62%, and vision at 57%.
Only 10% have added benefits in the past year, while 75% report no changes.

Practices clearly recognize that competitive benefits can be a differentiator in recruitment and retention. Offering robust PTO, some level of health coverage, and retirement options can help stabilize staffing, even if salaries are not at the very top of the local market range.

Words of wisdom from the field

One unique facet of this year’s survey was the open-ended advice administrators and physicians shared. Their suggestions revolve around several common themes. Here's what they had to say, in their own words:Invest in people:

“Train, train, train new employees,” and “Treat your staff well (financially) and they will be loyal.”
Act quickly on poor fits: “Don’t delay in getting rid of poor performers,” and “If someone is not a good fit or brings negativity, don’t wait to remove them.”
Foster a team culture: “Lead by example, not intimidation,” and “Build that team and continue perfecting it every day.”
Stay flexible: “Give more flexibility, especially to mothers,” and “Be sure the staff is satisfied.”
Plan for the future: “Start getting ready for AI,” “Control overhead by limiting staffing to adequate numbers,” and “We can’t cover our costs by just seeing patients.”

Looking ahead: Balancing costs and care

As we head deeper into 2025, the tension between adequate staffing, compensation, and practice profitability remains at the forefront. With a majority of practices still relying on traditional fee-for-service reimbursement (and only 21% blending it with value-based care), controlling overhead is challenging. Some practitioners see concierge or direct pay models as key to solving the financial puzzle, but these are far from universal solutions.

In the face of these complexities, the survey data affirms a few universal truths:

Practices that offer competitive pay and meaningful benefits see stronger retention.
A positive workplace culture—where team members are trained, respected, and recognized—remains the single most powerful antidote to staffing shortages.
Leaders must be agile, ready to adjust staff levels, explore new reimbursement models, and embrace emerging technologies (like AI and digital health solutions).

The feedback from our survey participants is clear: Finding and keeping the right people is critical, yet there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for success. As you look to refine your own practice’s staffing approach, consider investing in quality talent, staying open to new operational models, and fostering an environment that genuinely values employees. By doing so, you can position your practice not just to survive, but to thrive in a rapidly changing medical practice landscape.

Medical Practice Supplies

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Billing and Collections Stickers

Chart Labels

Business Cards and Stationary

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Saturday, March 12, 2022

Patient experience can overcome practice staffing woes

“Please be kind. We are short-staffed.”

Posting a sign like that would have been unthinkable in practices before 2020. Sadly, they’re all too familiar these days. Such pleas speak volumes about the current workforce trend dubbed “The Great Resignation,” but they also signal a significant escalation in patients’ expectations over recent months. As practices try to find long-term solutions to their staffing challenges, these signs suggest that they may want to focus as much on patient engagement as recruiting.

In the early days of the pandemic, most patients accepted some sacrifices to their personal convenience. They knew practices were scrambling to find new ways to deliver care, and they appreciated the efforts providers were taking to keep them safe. Now, after years of pandemic experience, the grace period is over. Frustration is mounting.

People have watched other industries rapidly accelerate consumer-friendly, on-demand services. Too many patients are asking, “why not healthcare?” In many places, overburdened healthcare staff feel as unhappy as their patients when they can’t offer the consumer-oriented experience that their patients want. As a result, healthcare workers are leaving the industry while patients are shifting their loyalties to those organizations that create a differentiated, digital, personalized experience.

The upshot is this: staffing shortages and patients’ expectations for high-touch care go hand-in-hand in today’s unconventional market. Attractive salary and benefits packages may be one way to attract and retain staff. Yet, a more sustainable way to minimize The Great Resignation—and gain greater patient loyalty in the process—is to improve the patient experience.

Entwined experiences

Some practices will retain more staff members and patients than others in the coming months. To become one of those organizations, a practice must start by putting processes in place to help staff keep their heads above water, to make them feel valued, and to set them up for success. Staff satisfaction thus forms a solid foundation for patient satisfaction.

It’s natural to want to work somewhere where you can succeed. For healthcare staff, that means being able to help their patients get the best care experience possible, while working in a positive, collaborative environment. So, one question all practices should ask is: What can we do to make patients feel comfortable, encourage them to come in, and take control of their health?

One answer is to adopt digital technologies to communicate with and empower patients to take greater ownership of healthcare-related activities. With millions of patients actively searching right now for a superior healthcare experience, there is no better time to make practices’ processes as digital and on-demand as they are in other industries.

Managing patient relationships through digital technology reduces many of the logistical complexities that dissatisfy patients and staff alike. Giving patients the ability to schedule appointments and pay bills online, for example, offers them the 24/7 convenience they expect while freeing staff from the tediousness of mundane tasks. The same can be said about communicating through two-way HIPAA-compliant text messages instead of playing rounds of “phone tag,” or offering digital intake forms instead of clipboards stacked with frustrating paperwork.

In addition to enhancing staff workflows and patient experiences, practices also gain valuable insights from data that results from digital technologies. Data analysis can help practices understand why people join their organization, why people stay, why they thrive, and why they leave. With such awareness, practices can be proactive about creating an exceptional workforce and an excellent patient experience.

The right time

Adopting low-cost ways to improve the patient experience, decrease operational expense, increase efficiency, and augment staff value will always be the right thing to do. But bolstering the patient experience is especially important as The Great Resignation continues to deepen the bonds between patient satisfaction and staff retention.

Patient satisfaction engenders staff satisfaction and vice versa, creating a virtuous cycle, driving practices, their staff and their patients forward. The practices that empower the patient experience through digital technology are best positioned to satisfy and engage their staff as well.

I admit, there is no “good time” to re-examine processes and entirely rethink the patient experience. The timing is not ideal during COVID surges that tax healthcare resources to their limits.

I challenge the premise that practices don’t need to focus on the patient experience if their non-COVID patient volumes are low. Those volumes will rebound, especially when adding virtual visits to the in-person mix. Today’s inflationary financial environment only amplifies the imperative for practices to try to control costs while fighting for talent and staff.

Now is the time to invest in crucial, practice-building initiatives like the patient experience. Giving patients the on-demand, digital healthcare experience they crave offers practices their best opportunity to drive sustainable patient engagement and turn The Great Resignation into a problem of the past.