Amir SohailEnglewood, (ZM NEWSWIRE) — Wages are easing. Hiring pressure isn’t. And practice budgets won’t get much relief in 2027. The 2026 MGMA DataDive Management and Staff Compensation Report, released today by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), finds medical practice pay gains cooled this year, but front-desk, clinical and billing staff are still earning well above five- and 10-year levels.
“Practices are not choosing between people and tools. They are trying to fund competitive pay while using better workflows to reduce the manual work that burns out staff and drives labor costs,” said Akash Madiah, Acting CEO of MGMA. “After several years of catch-up raises, practices are bumping up against what they can afford, and that makes every hiring and retention decision more important,” Madiah continued. “The leaders who will come out ahead in 2027 are the ones pricing roles to today’s market, rewarding the experienced staff carrying the hardest work, and taking a few time-consuming tasks off their team’s plate.”
Pay rose in eight of the 18 medical practice jobs MGMA tracks last year and fell in 10. Over five years, though, 17 of those 18 jobs pay more than they used to. Practices are squeezed by two hiring markets — competing with hospitals for clinical staff and with retailers, restaurants and call centers for front-desk help.
Key findings include:
- Licensed practical nurses (LPNs) led one-year gains: median total compensation rose 6.5%, followed by general accounting (+5.7%), medical receptionists (+4.8%) and medical assistants (+4.3%).
- Front-desk and clinical-support roles still command premium pay: Medical receptionists are up 22.0% over five years, medical assistants 20.6%, LPNs 29.7% and triage nurses 15.3%.
- Medical assistant hiring remains the hardest staffing problem: 56% of practices say medical assistant hiring became more difficult over the past year, compared with just 7% who say it got easier.
- Regional pay gaps are substantial: Registered nurse compensation varies by $22,947 between the West and Midwest, and patient care assistants by $19,760 between the East and South.
Wage compression is an ongoing retention risk: For nursing positions, the 2025 median for staff with 21 or more years of experience was only $298 higher than for those with five or fewer years.
Workforce is the top 2026 investment priority: 37% of practice leaders named workforce as their biggest area of new investment, followed by health IT (30%), revenue cycle (12%) and patient access (12%).
Automation is reshaping how work gets done: Automation (36%) and process fixes (23%) together made up more than half of practice leaders’ planned 2026 cost-cutting moves, ahead of hiring freezes, outsourcing or new vendors (MGMA Stat Poll).
The report, which includes MGMA’s weekly Stat Poll, also highlights how practices are evaluating AI for high-volume tasks such as scheduling, eligibility verification, prior authorization, denial follow-up and coding — areas where MGMA polling shows leaders are most actively redesigning work without reducing headcount.
The full 2026 MGMA DataDive Management and Staff Compensation Report is available on www.mgma.com
Contact Info
Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)
press@mgma.org
+1 877-275-6462 ext. 1478
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