Speaker 1 0:00
Before you look for new revenue, make make sure you're not leaking existing revenue. So you got to know your numbers, understand your provider productivity, your staffing ratios, payer performance denial trends. You got to know that better than anyone. You got to know your own practice before adding volume. Make sure you're collecting every dollar that you've already earned.

Speaker 2 0:32
Welcome to Off the Chart, a visit to medicine podcast featuring lively and informative conversations with healthcare experts, opinion leaders, and practicing physicians about the challenges facing doctors and medical practices. My name is Austin Luttrell. I'm the associate editor of Medical Economics, and I'd like to thank you for joining us today. In today's episode, Physicians Practice Managing Editor Keith Reynolds sat down with Akash Madaya, acting CEO of the Medical Group Management Association or MGMA, following the association's 2026 annual conference in San Antonio. Digging into what practices are calling MGMA about the most? What administrators should do this quarter as Medicare pay stays flat and costs keep rising, and what MGMA still needs to get right as it heads into its second century. And a quick reminder: while we're on the topic of protecting revenue in your practice, Physicians Practice is hosting a Practices Academy on Thursday, October 29th, from 12 to 4 p.m. Eastern. The theme for this one is protecting your practice's revenue, covering payer contract negotiations, Medicaid and managed care changes, and supplemental reimbursement that often goes missed. Again, that's October 29th. That's in two weeks from when this episode debuts, and we'll have a link to register in the show notes below. With all that said, Aakash, thank you for joining us. Keith, take it away.

Physicians Practice 1:44
Hey there, folks! Today we're talking to Akash Madaya, acting CEO of MGMA. How you doing, Akash?

Speaker 1 1:50
Hey, Keith. Nice to be with you.

Speaker 3 1:52
Oh, it's an absolute. It's

Physicians Practice 1:54
a pleasure to have you, man. It's a pleasure. You're the like I said. You're the first MGMA CEO I've been able to sit down with, and we deeply appreciate it. But I don't, I don't want to take up too much of your time. Let's dig right in. So you want MGMA to be practice's first call, not their third. What are they calling about?

Speaker 1 2:14
So the biggest thing with all medical practices is how does the math work from a financial standpoint? My colleague Anthers Gilbert actually had a session at a conference where it's basically a town hall where he really talked about Medicare cuts and prior authorization. So, obviously, with financial realities and cuts. How do you run an efficient clinic that can care for patients in a meaningful way? And then the prior auth is one one aspect of an overburdened system. And so when there's many steps to something that should be really simple. They're they're calling about how do we get advocacy for this? How do we? What's our solutions for this? And so those are probably the biggest things.

Physicians Practice 3:13
All right. So you know you started out using MGMA data in practice operations. That's you know the MGMA is your guys's data is amazing. I'm jealous of your data. How does that change the way you're leading the organization?

Speaker 1 3:29
Yeah, so I think it changes everything because I've been on the other side of this equation. I've been on the side of membership, and as you mentioned before, I worked at MGMA. I was using MGMA data to redo physician comp plans, and so I think it gives me just just another perspective of what are we providing, whether it's data or anything that we give to our members, like how are they going to use this on Monday morning when they get to work, rather than just what's something when we're cooking up in a lab here at MGMA? So just thinking about putting ourselves in the member's shoes, so we're always providing the right solutions.

Physicians Practice 4:11
All right. So you know, you mentioned the conference. You know, you're referring to the the big leadership conference down in San Antonio. It was last week. I I really need you guys to start sticking these conferences someplace a little more temperate. I know you guys had Denver a few years ago. I missed that one. That was my great mistake. But this, you know, I've heard that this is the biggest conference since the pandemic. You know, what were you hearing in the hallways?

Speaker 1 4:38
Yeah, just a lot of engagement. I think there's, I think about why people want to join the association in the first place, and it's really solutions and connection, and where people can look to others in this industry to find a solution. So hopefully, and. May can provide a solution, but if if we can't or if we don't have the answer readily available, or it's a longer term answer with advocacy in Washington, hopefully there's somebody else that has solved this problem, whether it's locally in their state or somewhere across our our member spectrum. And so, a lot of the talk was really some of the things we I just mentioned, which is like reimbursements and the administrative burden, but then also like how do I get more connected with MGMA? How do I volunteer and how do I be a part of the solution as well? And that's what I always appreciate about our membership. There's no shortage of volunteers up on to help out, to be a mentor, to help help the industry along, and you know I think that's says something about the power of our membership.

Physicians Practice 5:54
Oh yeah, it's it's it's certainly a community. It's ah it's always great walking the the floor and just watching the the communication between the members, and just you know, it's it's like a family reunion, really. You know, I'm not in any of the pictures, like at my own family reunion, but that's fine. All right, so you know, from from here forward, you know, what does MGMA still need to get right?

Speaker 1 6:19
Yeah, so we did our first ever member pulse survey, and this year, and put out a member impact survey. So the things that we are getting right are trust, but some of the things that we're not getting right is we need to make it easier for members to access what we do-that means from a digital perspective, that means from an education perspective, and then local engagement as well. And so we're re-engaging on all three of those things. I mentioned in my opening remarks at the conference that that work is all already underway, and so part of that-not just these three things-but like we want to continually listen to our members and make sure that we are reflecting their feedback, not just again, oh, I think this is going wrong, or one of my colleagues thinks this is going wrong. Like, what are the substantive things that we need to get right? And you know, you mentioned our data, but data, education, advocacy, and the community-we do those things well. We can always do better, but those are the reasons MGMA people continue to invest in MGMA and want to continue that. And anything that we're not doing right. Want to listen to that feedback and how we can get better?

Physicians Practice 7:44
All right. So let's get into some some sort of nuts and bolts of this. You know, you mentioned you're hearing a lot about you know reimbursements. So there's you know flat Medicare pay costs are rising. You know, what should an administrator do this quarter?

Speaker 1 8:00
Yeah, I mean that's not an easy question. You know, I think in general, before you look for new revenue, make make sure you're not leaking existing revenue. So you got to know your numbers, understand your provider productivity, your staffing ratios, payer performance denial trends. You got to know that better than anyone. You got to know your own practice, and then focus on the revenue capture. Like before adding volume, make sure you're collecting every dollar that you've already earned, and then invest time in your people. Turnover is really expensive, and so make sure people are not burnt out to the best of your ability. It's not an easy thing for me to just say-but these are things that you got to pay attention to. Retention often provides a better return than recruitment. And then finally, don't try to solve these challenges in isolation. Benchmark against your peers. Learn from other organizations facing the same pressures, and that's where MGMA can help. Like we have a lot of that that benchmarking data.

Physicians Practice 9:12
Hey there, Keith Reynolds here, and welcome to the P2 Management Minute. In just 60 seconds, we deliver proven real-world tactics you can plug into your practice today. Whether that means speeding up check-in, lifting staff morale, or nudging patient satisfaction north, no theory, no fluff, just the kind of guidance that fits between appointments and moves the needle before lunch. But the best ideas don't all come from our newsroom; they come from you. Got a clever workflow hack, an employee engagement win, or a lesson learned the hard way? I want to feature it. Shoot me an email at kreynolds@mjhlifesciences.com with your topic, a quick outline, or even a smartphone clip. We'll handle the rest and get your insights in front of your peers nationwide. Let's make every minute count together. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next P2 Management Minute. All right. So you know you're the acting CEO in the the big centennial year, 100 years. Honors Gilbert's been there for 98 of them. You know what's on your to do list?

Speaker 1 10:17
Yeah, I you know I'm I've been here for about eight years in various capacities, just around around the last year in this acting CEO role. I'm very proud of where we've been, but I'm I'm starting to think about the second 100 years, right? And we just need to be make sure we're serving our members exceptionally well. They are the lifeblood of what MGMA is. It's a membership organization, and we have to prepare MGMA for the next generation of healthcare leadership. We have a wide thing. I said on stage, our youngest attendee at our conference was 19, and our oldest, I think, was 76 or 79, so we have a wide range, wide spectrum there, and so we need to make sure we're serving all aspects to the new early careerists, to the old veterans, and so again, that means listening, that means being able to figure out what problems every aspect, the business side of healthcare, and you know our our vision is to advance the business of healthcare. And so, what does that mean? That means everything that's not touching the patient in a medical practice. And so, that means evolving our data capabilities. I read one survey where some of the biggest problems facing just associations in general are engaging members, member engagement, and the digital experience, like you know, modernizing systems. And so, the great news is we've started modernizing our systems in the last year and a half put a lot of money into that, and so we want to make sure the three things that we want to continue to do is put out good products like our data product, but like evolve that because want to provide practices the solutions they want. We want to engage the members. That means something different to a lot of different members. Some some people it means certification and learning what you need to do for this job versus I just need the data to redo a physician comp plan or figure out how to staff my clinic. And then the last one is industry leadership. So we want to be recognized through interviews like this with you, Keith, like as somebody people want to go to for expertise in the industry. And that that one's really important because if we do have that, if we are a leading voice for medical practices, people will come to us. You know, our advocacy work in Washington never becomes easy, but it becomes easier because people recognize us as a leader, and that creates something for our membership that you really can't quantify, right? And so we're working for our members behind the scenes and advocating for them in a way that hopefully will make their lives easier.

Physicians Practice 13:23
Alrighty, so this is physicians' practice. So you know, I got to ask you for some tips. Tips and tricks are what we do. So, what's one tip you'd give a practice administrator they can implement today? Well, it's 4o'clock here on the the Eastern Time Zone. So let's say tomorrow. What's something they can do tomorrow?

Speaker 1 13:40
Tomorrow's a Friday. I don't know. Oh,

Physicians Practice 13:42
let's say Monday then. Yeah, good, good call. Good call.

Speaker 1 13:46
I think there's. I would say two things. One, pick a metric that matters most to your organization and just review it every week. Like there's, you know, just start small. You got to start somewhere, right? Like, yeah. So figure out what's the metric that could really move your organization from good to to great. So pick pick that, and then the other thing I'd say is schedule one conversation with a peer outside your organization. Find them in the MGMA network, or just find find the clinic down the street, or a system down the street, or in another state. Like find, you know, have that connection in this industry because it's very rare that a problem you're facing isn't something somebody else hasn't faced or is continually facing, and so just I think interacting in this industry can help move this forward, and that's really again the power of MGMA and our membership. Like we want to hear those problems that that are affecting. Multiple organizations and figure out how we can help, whether it's a solution or advocacy or just how how we can better engage. So, I think those are the two things that I would recommend.

Physicians Practice 15:12
Alrighty, that's all I got for you today. Is there anything you want to add? Anything you think I'm overlooking?

Speaker 1 15:18
No, I appreciate you asking these questions, I think we want to be there for our members. We want to continue advancing the business of healthcare. Said in again at the conference, but we're a group of peers that want to have each other's back and the work that our members do in medical practices is so important, right? Like, there's, we want, we want. I used to work in finance in in a medical practice, and so I was never touching the patient. But that's what MGMA does. We're never touching the patient, but we want to make sure we're enabling those physicians to to work with their patients and give the best care. So, what are the things that we can take off their plate, and how how do we run a clinic and a medical practice more efficiently? So, thank you.

Physicians Practice 16:14
Healthcare is a team sport.

Speaker 4 16:17
Yeah. So,

Physicians Practice 16:17
all righty. Thank you so much, Akash. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to

Speaker 1 16:21
you. Yeah, you as well, Keith. I appreciate you having me on.

Speaker 2 16:31
Once again, that was a conversation between Keith Reynolds, managing editor of Physicians Practice, and Akash Madaya, acting CEO of MGMA. Don't forget to join Physicians Practice on Thursday, October 29th, from 12 to 4 p.m. Eastern for our virtual Practice Academy series, protecting your practice's revenue. You'll hear practical strategies for strengthening payer contracts, keeping up with Medicaid changes, and capturing reimbursement that too often just slips through the cracks. And even better, it's absolutely free. You can find the link to register in the show notes below. My name is Austin Latrell, and on behalf of the whole medical economics and physicians practice teams, I'd like to thank you for listening to the show and ask that you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. As always, be sure to check back on Monday and Thursday mornings for the latest conversations with experts sharing strategies, stories, and solutions for your practice. You can find us by searching off the chart wherever you get your podcasts. Also, if you like the best stories that medical economics and physicians practice publish, delivered straight to your email six days of the week, subscribe to our newsletters at medicaleconomics.com and physicianspractice.com. Off the chart, a business of medicine podcast is executive produced by Chris Mazzolini and Keith Reynolds, and produced by Austin Latrell. Medical Economics and Physicians Practice are both members of the MJH Life Sciences family. Thank you.