Staff turnover in medical practices appears calmer than during the post-pandemic labour shock, but stability remains uneven. Many practice leaders are no longer seeing turnover worsen, yet staffing pressure continues in operational roles that support clinic flow, patient access and revenue cycle work. A May 26 MGMA Stat poll of 303 applicable responses found that nearly seven in 10 medical group leaders placed turnover at about the same level or lower than in 2025, with 39% saying it was about the same and 30% saying it was lower. Another 28% said turnover was higher, while 2% were unsure. The pattern closely matches a May 2025 poll, when 70% placed turnover at the same level or lower than the previous year.
Turnover Pressure Remains Role-Specific
Practices with higher turnover face strain across several roles, with pressure most often concentrated among medical assistants, nursing staff, other clinical support workers and front-desk or administrative staff. Some medical groups also face departures among providers, billing staff and revenue cycle management roles. These groups tend to manage churn reactively, using temporary staff to fill gaps, adjusting pay where possible, widening recruiting pipelines and, in some cases, developing internal training programmes to build talent that remains hard to find externally.
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Practices where turnover remains steady experience similar pressure points, but the disruption appears more controlled. Medical assistants and front-desk or entry-level administrative staff remain common churn points, alongside nursing and revenue cycle roles. These organisations more often use retention measures rather than relying only on backfilling. Common approaches include bonuses, wage increases, four-day workweeks, other scheduling flexibility, stay interviews, training, advancement pathways and efforts to strengthen culture and manager support.
Practices with lower turnover most often connect improvement to the same categories where churn has been difficult to contain, including medical assistants, front-desk staff, clinical support workers and other patient-facing roles. Their progress coincides with investment in pay, onboarding, training, predictable scheduling, culture, benefits and clearer career paths. Improvement therefore sits less with morale-building alone and more with active management of the conditions that influence whether staff stay.
Workforce Stability Requires Wider Measures
Staff turnover creates an operational challenge as well as a human resources challenge. Each departure can slow rooming, age claims work, lengthen call queues, increase overtime and weaken institutional knowledge. The impact depends on where churn occurs. Medical assistant turnover affects rooming time, intake quality and visit capacity, especially when teams rely on new hires who are still learning provider preferences. Front-desk and patient access turnover affects scheduling, phone handling, check-in, checkout, referral handoffs and complaints.
Revenue cycle management turnover can delay cash by allowing claims submission, denial follow-up, coding review, prior authorisation support and patient balance work to age. Specialty technologist turnover can constrain services when roles such as mammography technologist, X-ray technologist or cardiac sonographer are left without coverage. These effects make turnover risk particularly significant in the roles that keep clinic flow, access and cash moving.
Turnover alone does not show whether a practice is fully staffed or stable. Lower turnover can coexist with frozen positions, fewer trained float staff, reduced clinic hours, thin revenue cycle teams or inexperienced front-desk staff. Steady turnover may reflect a healthier situation when vacancies are filled quickly, and new hires reach competency sooner. Leaders therefore need to monitor turnover rate, vacancy rate and workload pressure together.
Retention Systems Need Role-Focused Design
Retention responses work best when they match the affected role. Front-desk and access teams often need better onboarding, predictable scheduling, de-escalation support and routes into more skilled work. Revenue cycle teams may benefit from targeted remote or hybrid flexibility where duties allow. Medical assistants and clinical support staff often need faster ramp-up, consistent provider-team routines and practical career ladders. These measures address specific sources of friction rather than treating turnover as a single workforce problem.
A steadier labour market creates an opportunity to build retention infrastructure before conditions tighten again. Structured onboarding can give new staff clear expectations, guidance on provider preferences and defined competency milestones at 30, 60 and 90 days. Stay interviews and newer-hire check-ins can identify fixable sources of friction before they lead to resignations. Peer mentoring can help new hires navigate the first 90 days, while visible internal mobility can reduce the sense that advancement requires leaving.
Manager development also remains central to retention management. Coaching, feedback and conflict de-escalation require calendar space and senior leadership support. Scheduling predictability and targeted flexibility can help both on-site clinical teams and access roles, while experienced revenue cycle staff may value remote or hybrid options where the work allows. Recognition works best when it names specific behaviour and results. Compensation adjustments work best when paired with internal equity reviews.
Staff turnover in medical practices appears more manageable than during the post-pandemic labour shock, but staffing stability remains incomplete. The same roles continue to carry much of the pressure: medical assistants, front-desk and patient access staff, nursing and clinical support roles, revenue cycle teams and some technical specialists. A lower or steady turnover rate is only one part of workforce health. Practices still need vacancies to fill at the pace they open, access to hold, revenue cycle work to stay current and workloads to remain sustainable over time.
Source: MGMA
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