Report on COVID-19’s Impact on Medical Practices

If you know anything about the MGMA organization, they’re probably most well known for all the data they have around medical practices.  Whether you’re looking for Provider Compensation Data, Medical Practice Claims and A/R data, or basically any data needed about medical practices, MGMA is the place to go.  Given this, it was no surprise that MGMA would come out with their “Quantifying COVID-19: Measuring the Pandemic’s Impact on Medical Practices” report.  The report is available as part of their MGMA DataDrive for those interested in purchasing the full report.

We got a look at the report and wanted to share some of the highlights.  In fact, MGMA did a recent webinar sharing insights from the report and here were 6 key takeaways from the presentation:

1. Patients came back for care in summer 2020 after safety worries, deferred visits

2. The recovery was short-lived due to the fall 2020 COVID-19 surge

3. Telehealth surged, then ebbed, then grew again with new waves of COVID-19

4. Slow periods for productivity were opportunities to catch up on collections

5. Supply costs were up dramatically, but cuts elsewhere lowered overall spending

6. Staffing struggles persist due to quarantine, childcare and a tight labor market