More than half of practice leaders added four or more functions to their role in the past two years. MGMA Stat polled 227 leaders on Sept. 8, 2026, and only 8% said no new functions had been added.
Most leaders added four or more functions in two years
MGMA published the results on Sept. 17, 2026. The poll asked how many new functions each role gained in the past two years. Of the 227 respondents, nearly 10% said 10 or more. The 8% who said none included one leader who wrote, "Not sure, but if you added one more thing I'd BREAK."
MGMA also asked each leader to name one task they do every day that nobody knows is part of the job. Answers included credentialing, supply inventory, cash-flow monitoring, custom reporting, data collection, and authorizations. Some of the growth came with promotions, new providers, or new work such as AI research and rollout. The rest was gap-filling, which one respondent described as "clerical work my staff should be doing."
A scheduling problem, a provider issue, a facilities concern, a technology question, an employee conflict, and a patient complaint tend to reach the same desk, MGMA wrote. One respondent summed up the job as "solving problems that come up during the day so others don't have to." The clinic managers who met in 1926, the gathering that helped create MGMA, already described the work as a job for a jack-of-all-trades.
Where the hidden duties sit
People management was the most common hidden duty. On the staff side, respondents listed HR work and retention efforts. On the provider side, they listed performance coaching, same-day schedule changes when patients cancel, and follow-up on unclosed charts. An unclosed chart holds up a claim, and an unfilled cancellation is a lost visit. In groups too small for a dedicated HR department, many leaders have become the de facto head of human resources.
Money came next, in about one in five answers. Respondents named work on the A/R list, review of incoming bank EFTs, and insurance questions from patients. Facilities work appeared in roughly one in six answers, with restocking and backorder management as examples.
Job titles show the same spread. Asked which title fits their typical day, about 4 in 10 respondents gave one standard leadership title, such as practice manager or executive director. About 1 in 3 dropped traditional titles and wrote answers such as "firefighter" and "chaos coordinator."
| Poll result | Share of respondents or answers |
|---|---|
| Leaders who added no new functions in two years | 8% |
| Leaders who added four or more functions | More than 50% |
| Leaders who added 10 or more functions | Nearly 10% |
| Hidden duties that involve money | About 1 in 5 answers |
| Hidden duties that involve facilities | Roughly 1 in 6 answers |
| Leaders who gave one standard leadership title | About 4 in 10 |
| Leaders who dropped traditional titles | About 1 in 3 |
Source: MGMA Stat poll of 227 practice leaders, Sept. 8, 2026, published Sept. 17, 2026. The base for each row is the respondents to that poll question, as MGMA reports it.
Staffing ratios and costs shape the workload
An MGMA Stat poll on July 7, 2026, asked how the ratio of support staff to FTE physicians changed in 2026. Among 216 respondents, 63% said it stayed the same, 18% said it rose, and 19% said it fell. Among leaders whose ratios held steady or rose, roughly one in four still said support staffing was not adequate for patient demand.
MGMA linked the two polls. When support teams run thin, physicians and advanced practice providers absorb the overflow. The Sept. 8 answers suggest practice leaders absorb some of it too. MGMA also reported that 48% of groups raised their APP-to-physician ratio in 2025 even as physician encounters fell. A per-physician staffing count therefore does not compare cleanly from year to year.
Cost pressure adds to the load. MGMA's July 8, 2026 article reported operating costs climbing in 84% of groups, with labor the most-cited driver. Revenue growth narrowed as well: 47% of groups reported higher year-to-date revenue and 36% reported a decline. That is a gap of 11 points, down from 26 points a year earlier.
Payer phone and portal work takes staff time too. MGMA cited two March polls on Sept. 2, 2026. In the first, 45% of practice leaders named eligibility checks and authorization requests as their staff's most time-consuming phone tasks. In the second, 61% of practices had staff who used seven or more payer portals each week. In a June poll, 68% of groups had not yet redesigned a role or adjusted staffing with AI.
Pay and demand for health services managers
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks a wider occupation, medical and health services managers. It covers managers of entire facilities, clinical departments, and practices run for groups of physicians. BLS reported a median pay of $123,860 a year, or $59.55 an hour, in 2025, and 640,400 jobs. It projects 24% job growth from 2025 to 2035, or 155,100 more jobs, with about 62,300 openings a year on average. The typical entry-level education is a bachelor's degree, with less than five years of related experience.
| Industry | Median annual wage, May 2025 | Share of employment |
|---|---|---|
| Hospitals (state, local, and private) | $133,580 | 28% |
| Outpatient care centers | $116,060 | 7% |
| Offices of physicians | $105,770 | 13% |
| Nursing and residential care facilities | $100,520 | 9% |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Medical and Health Services Managers, page last modified Aug. 27, 2026. Shares are percentages of all jobs in the occupation.
BLS lists budgets and billing, staff supervision, and work schedules among the core duties of the occupation. Hospitals employ 28% of these managers and pay the highest median of the four settings above. Offices of physicians employ 13%, at a median wage of $105,770. That is $27,810 below the hospital median of $133,580.
Sources
- MGMA, Congratulations, you're now the Chief Everything Officer, MGMA Stat, Sept. 17, 2026
- MGMA, Stable staff-to-physician ratios might conceal real strain in your practice, MGMA Stat, July 8, 2026
- MGMA, Fewer than 1 in 10 practices see faster prior auth turnarounds in 2026, MGMA Stat, Sept. 2, 2026
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Medical and Health Services Managers, Occupational Outlook Handbook, last modified Aug. 27, 2026
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