MGMA's March 2026 Stat poll of 200 medical group leaders found that 60.0% said their physicians and advanced practice providers (APPs) met or beat productivity goals in 2025. That is 9.0 points below the 69.0% reported for 2024, and 40.0% of groups ended 2025 under their goals.
Each group judges productivity against a target it set for itself, so the poll shows how many groups hit their own mark. It is not a shared standard. Four MGMA polls from 2022 to 2026 show how that share has moved.
How many groups hit their productivity goals in 2025
MGMA ran the poll on March 3, 2026 and received 200 applicable responses. Of those, 37.0% said productivity was on target and 23.0% said it exceeded goals. The other 40.0% said it fell below goals.
The February 2025 poll covered 2024 and drew 218 responses. Leaders placed 45.0% of groups on target, 24.0% above goals and 30.0% below expectations. Between the two polls, the on-target share fell 8.0 points, from 45.0% to 37.0%. The above-goal share moved 1.0 point. The below-goal share rose 10.0 points.
Against the 2022 reading of 65.0% (413 responses), the 2025 figure is 5.0 points lower. Against the 2023 reading of 67.0% (353 responses), it is 7.0 points lower.
In plain terms, about four in 10 groups missed their targets for 2025. A year earlier, about three in 10 did.
Five years of MGMA productivity polls
MGMA has polled leaders on productivity goals every year since 2021. The table lists each reading.
| Year measured | Poll | Responses | Exceeded goals | On target | Below goals | Met or beat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | November 2021 | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | 30.0% | 70.0% |
| 2022 | November 2022 | 413 | 29.0% | 36.0% | 36.0% | 65.0% |
| 2023 | October 2023 | 353 | 19.0% | 48.0% | 33.0% | 67.0% |
| 2024 | February 2025 | 218 | 24.0% | 45.0% | 30.0% | 69.0% |
| 2025 | March 2026 | 200 | 23.0% | 37.0% | 40.0% | 60.0% |
Source: MGMA Stat polls of medical group leaders, as published by MGMA in November 2022, October 2023, February 2025 and March 2026. The 2021 figures come from MGMA's November 2022 article, which gave no sample size. MGMA notes that the 2022 shares do not total 100% because of rounding.
The 40.0% below-goal reading for 2025 is the highest in the table. The previous high was 36.0% for 2022. The share above goals fell from 29.0% in 2022 to 19.0% in 2023, a 10.0-point drop, then recovered to 24.0% in 2024. Polls of 200 to 413 responses carry wide error, so a one or two point change between years tells you little. The 10.0-point rise in missed goals for 2025 is larger than that.
Visits and work RVUs moved in opposite directions
MGMA's compensation data shows how a group can feel busy and still miss a target. In physician-owned practices from 2023 to 2024, the median change in total encounters for primary care physicians was +7.81%, while median work relative value units (wRVUs) changed by -10.19%. Nonsurgical specialists saw encounters change by +20.52% and wRVUs by -7.73%.
Ownership also matters. MGMA's 2025 Provider Compensation and Productivity report used 2024 data on more than 220,000 physicians and APPs. It found that private-practice primary care physicians logged 12.17% more total encounters and 16.12% more collections than their counterparts in hospital or integrated delivery system groups.
APP volume grew faster than physician volume. In physician-owned practices from 2023 to 2024, the median change in APP total encounters was +39.33% and in APP wRVUs +21.86%. Primary care physician encounters grew 7.81% over the same period.
MGMA also compared APPs by ownership in 2024. Physician-owned practices showed 124.53% higher APP collections, 81.95% higher APP encounters and 65.74% higher APP wRVUs than hospital-owned groups.
A goal set in visits and a goal set in wRVUs can give opposite readings for the same year. In the medians above, the gap between the two measures ranged from 17.5 to 28.3 percentage points. Check which measure your own target uses before you compare your result with the 60.0% figure.
What leaders credit for hitting or missing goals
MGMA's article gives no percentages for causes, only themes from open-ended answers. Groups above goal pointed to AI-enabled tools such as scribes and scheduling, template changes, added staff, extended hours, and better coding and documentation work. Groups below goal cited limited provider availability from time off, burnout, turnover and recruiting gaps. They also cited schedule design, no-shows, last-minute cancellations and EHR friction.
The 2024 poll of 218 responses, where 69.0% met or beat goals and 30.0% missed, showed the same split. Leaders who exceeded goals credited centralized and online scheduling, standard templates, added capacity and tools such as AI, telehealth and virtual scribes. Leaders who missed cited staffing shortages, provider attrition, denials, authorization burden and no-shows. In the October 2023 poll of 353 responses, staffing shortages and the lower volumes that followed were the most frequent answer.
MGMA's article lists six areas to protect productivity: measurable goals, scheduling systems, documentation and coding accuracy, care team workflow, APP capacity and sustainability. The article also advises groups to define what "on target" means in their practice. A group can then compare its 2025 result with the three shares in the March 2026 poll: 23.0% above goals, 37.0% on target and 40.0% below.
The detailed encounter and wRVU benchmark tables sit in MGMA's 2025 Provider Compensation and Productivity report, released June 10, 2025. Those tables are open to MGMA members only.
Sources
- MGMA Stat, Keeping your clinician productivity on track throughout 2026, March 4, 2026
- MGMA Stat, About 7 in 10 medical practices saw physicians, APPs meet or exceed productivity goals in 2024, February 26, 2025
- MGMA Stat, Medical groups' productivity still struggling in 2023 amid staffing shortages, October 12, 2023
- MGMA Stat, What's holding back medical group productivity: it's people more than the pandemic, November 16, 2022
- MGMA, 2025 Provider Compensation and Productivity Data Report key insights, June 10, 2025
Talk to us
Fifteen minutes about your practice and the systems you run.