Workforce spending claims 37% of every new dollar added to a medical group's 2026 budget, more than any other category, according to an MGMA Stat poll of 213 medical groups fielded October 28, 2025. Health information technology is next at 30%, followed by revenue cycle and patient access at 12% each, with facilities and other spending taking the remaining 9%.
Where new 2026 budget dollars go
MGMA's poll asked medical group leaders where they planned to direct new budget money for 2026, not their entire operating budget. Workforce dollars go toward headcount additions, merit and market pay adjustments, bonuses, and benefits. AI tools, EHR and practice management upgrades, cloud migration, and cybersecurity make up most of the health IT line. Revenue cycle spending centers on automation, payer analytics, coding support, and outsourcing. Patient access rounds out the list with online scheduling, portal messaging, and call center staffing.
| Budget category | Share of new 2026 dollars |
|---|---|
| Workforce | 37% |
| Health IT | 30% |
| Revenue cycle | 12% |
| Patient access | 12% |
| Facilities and other | 9% |
Source: MGMA Stat, "Where medical groups are putting new dollars in 2026 budgets," October 28, 2025, 213 applicable responses.
Two earlier MGMA Stat polls show what sits behind the health IT and revenue cycle lines. A September 17, 2024 poll of 326 medical groups found 72% had increased cybersecurity spending that year, while 28% had not, a pattern tied to rising cyber-insurance premiums after a run of health care breaches. A separate November 19, 2024 poll of 352 practice leaders found 36% planned to outsource or automate part of their revenue cycle management in 2025, while 50% had no such plans and 14% were unsure. Collections, billing, and medical coding were the functions named most often by the groups planning a change.
Staff pay budgets lag behind role-level raises
Workforce takes the largest budget share, but the raises behind that spending are modest at the group level. An MGMA Stat poll of 349 practice leaders, fielded September 9, 2025, found 64% budgeting base pay increases of 1% to 3% for 2026, 23% budgeting 4% to 6%, just 1% planning 7% or more, and 10% budgeting no base pay increase at all.
Those targets sit well below what some roles actually received the year before. MGMA's Management and Staff Compensation dataset, covering more than 4,300 medical groups, found general accounting staff pay rose 17.4% year over year, triage nurses rose 14.3%, supervisors rose 12%, registered nurses rose 11.9%, and senior and general managers rose about 11%. Registered nurse hourly pay now runs roughly $11 above 2020 levels. Over five years, triage nurse pay has climbed 84%, the fastest-growing role MGMA tracks in that dataset. The same MGMA reporting found 47% of practices naming medical assistant hiring their top staffing challenge, and 64% of practices say they benchmark staff compensation against outside data at least once a year. A regional executive pay gap of roughly $96,000 separates the highest- and lowest-paying parts of the country for the same leadership role.
| Staff role | Year-over-year pay change |
|---|---|
| General accounting | +17.4% |
| Triage nurses | +14.3% |
| Supervisors | +12.0% |
| Registered nurses | +11.9% |
| Senior/general managers | +11.0% |
Source: MGMA Management and Staff Compensation dataset, 4,300+ medical groups, cited in MGMA Stat, "Budgeting 2026: Staff pay for medical practice," September 9, 2025.
How practices cut costs when the budget is tight
A third MGMA Stat poll, fielded January 27, 2026 among 226 practice leaders, asked what practices are doing to control costs rather than where they add new spending. Automation ranked first at 36%, followed by general process fixes at 23%, a hiring freeze or headcount cuts at 18%, outsourcing at 14%, and switching to new vendors at 9%. More than 80% of respondents described their approach as a proactive operating change rather than a simple staff reduction, and the automation targets named most often were revenue cycle tasks such as eligibility checks, claims, denials, and prior authorization, alongside scheduling and front-desk work.
What the numbers mean for budget planning
The gap between the two staffing figures is the one worth checking against a practice's own numbers first. A group budgeting a 1% to 3% base pay increase for 2026, the plan 64% of MGMA's respondents chose, is setting a number well under the 11.9% to 17.4% raises MGMA's compensation dataset shows for nurses, supervisors, and accounting staff over the prior year. If frontline roles are still commanding double-digit raises in a tight labor market, a 1% to 3% average budget will not hold once individual offers go out, and the workforce line will run over even though it already carries the largest share of new spending at 37%.
The 30% share going to health IT, and the 36% of practices naming automation as their top cost-cutting move, point the same direction: spending that used to sit in the workforce column is shifting toward tools meant to reduce headcount growth in scheduling, eligibility, and claims work. A practice checking its own 2026 budget against these figures can start with the split between new workforce and new technology dollars, then compare the base pay increase actually being offered against the roles seeing the fastest outside raises.
Sources
- MGMA Stat, "Where medical groups are putting new dollars in 2026 budgets," October 28, 2025
- MGMA Stat, "Confronting the rising price tag of cybersecurity in medical practices," September 17, 2024
- MGMA Stat, "Automating and outsourcing medical practice revenue cycle management," November 19, 2024
- MGMA Stat, "Budgeting 2026: Staff pay for medical practice," September 9, 2025
- MGMA Stat, "Top cost-cutting moves for medical practices in 2026," January 27, 2026
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