Physician Practices Report Increased IT Costs

IT costs are on the rise, as physician practices adopt and optimize EHRs. Since 2008, medical practices' annual expenditures per full-time-equivalent physician for IT costs have climbed 27.8%, from a median of $15,211 in 2008 to a reported $19,439 in 2012, according to the MGMA Cost Survey Report: 2013 Report Based on 2012 Data.

”Implementing and optimizing information technology is a significant investment for physician practices,” says Derek Kosiorek, principal at MGMA Health Care Consulting Group. “Although an electronic health record can be costly, it’s admirable that physician practices are leveraging sophisticated tools that produce higher efficiencies and impact patient care.”

Physician practices also reported increases in median staffing costs as a result of adding business operations, clinical, and ancillary support professionals to the practice. Total business operations staff per 10,000 patients increased 8.69% since 2011, from 6.56 to 7.13. This indicates that physician practices and hospitals are investing in sophisticated, knowledgeable, and certified staff  to manage physician services. Staff costs are also on the rise as additional personnel are hired to manage operations and contend with a complex regulatory environment. Increased staffing costs may have also been incurred as practices seek to improve their patients' experience and satisfaction with their visits beyond the time spent with the clinician.  

“The patient’s experience extends far beyond the exam room,” says Kenneth T. Hertz, FACMPE, MGMA Health Care Consulting Group. “It’s important to consider how items such as scheduling availability, insurance verification and benefits determination, refill reminders, access to patient portals, and other technology enhance your patients' experience. If you’re devoting resources to employing a team of professionals that can manage and make improvements on these fronts, you’re working to be more patient-centered overall.”

The MGMA Cost Survey Report: 2013 Report Based on 2012 Data features data from 2,411 groups and includes data categorized by specialty, organization ownership, and geographic section, as well as data on staffing ratios, medical revenue, total operating costs, and accounts receivable.  

The information is available on DataDive, an easy-to-use Web-based format that allows users to access and drill down data for analysis as well as a printed report.

Source: MGMA-ACMPE