Austin Littrell

The 2026 Healthcare Workforce Barometer measures the gap between what practice leaders think their staff want, and what staff say they want.

A tool that costs little to run can be billed many times over, and Caroline Pearson of the Peterson Health Technology Institute says that math is what makes clinical AI lucrative now and precarious under the next payment model.

Health care economist Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D., says state bans on corporate ownership won't keep a practice independent, and that control over decision-making is what separates an MSO partnership from an acquisition.

Most practices have no protocol for the hour after a medical error, and Anthony Orsini, D.O., says that gap is what turns a minor mistake into a lost patient and sometimes a claim.

A former MedPAC commissioner argues that whether clinicians feel like professionals or like interchangeable parts decides the quality of everything a measurement program cannot see.

The comment window closes Sept. 14, and the same rule already previews what a coding transition looks like operationally.

Flat malpractice premiums are masking a severity trend running well ahead of inflation, and the cushion holding rates down is running out.

The rules on who can own a hospital are shaping consolidation in local markets, and the evidence behind them hasn't held up.

Florida has no corporate practice of medicine doctrine and skipped the 2026 wave of transaction-review bills. What's left is the Health Care Clinic Act, a fee-splitting statute and whatever the management agreement says.

Vaccine inventory is getting more expensive, the counseling time around it is not reimbursed, and the practices that stop stocking lose more than the margin.

The insurer pledge on prior authorization carried no enforcement. The federal rule arriving Jan. 1, 2027 does, and it lands on payers, on EHR vendors and, through a new attestation measure, on practices themselves.

More than 400 revenue cycle leaders told Inovalon which workflows send their claims back. The ranking reads as a to-do list for whoever owns the front end of the practice.

Denials that surface a week late, a hybrid revenue cycle split across internal staff and outside vendors, and payer contracts multiplying faster than anyone can track them. Veradigm's Aaron Ledbetter breaks down which of those an administrator can fix with better tooling and which still need payer reform.

Jay Bregman of Andel explains how employers are carving high-cost drugs out of the pharmacy benefit, and what happens to a patient's price when the contribution stops.

Every practice has one person who is the only one who knows how to do a handful of things. Here are eight of them, and what breaks the week that person is out.

Shawntea Gordon of Atlas & Perpetua Healthcare Consulting says a cost cut made without benchmarking data is a guess, and the wrong guess costs more than it saves.

Joanne Frederick of Government Market Strategies argues the fix for runaway health care costs turned out worse than the problem it solved.

Staffing shortages, training gaps and insurance verification delays are the front-end problems dragging on patient access, and nearly all of them land on the administrator's desk. Experian Health's chief operating officer breaks down which ones automation can absorb now and which ones still need payer or policy reform.

An outbreak in the news brings a surge of calls before it brings a surge of cases. A Michigan pediatrician on the triage rule, the lab conversation and the reassurance approach that keep a practice from being overwhelmed.

The proposed 2027 Medicare fee schedule shifts payment between specialties and changes same-day billing as MIPS winds down, and MGMA's Anders Gilberg explains what practice leaders should watch before comments close Sept. 14.

Women physicians leave clinical practice 15 years earlier than men, and for practice leaders the retention levers are schedule control, documentation burden and how care time gets paid.

Overhead runs about 60% of practice revenue, concentrated in four line items every administrator knows by heart.

Most physicians know the direct primary care pitch; whether the economics hold up once you're in it is the harder question.

The same low-risk procedure can pay five to 12 times more in a hospital outpatient department than in a physician's office. Three U.S. Women's Health Alliance advocates break down what that gap does to recruiting, referrals and patient choice, and the federal bill aimed at closing it.

As consolidation reshapes the market, health care investment banker Andy Colbert breaks down what an independent practice is really worth and how to weigh private equity, a hospital deal or a management services organization.

As more physicians weigh a move to concierge or hybrid practices, health care attorney Ericka Adler, J.D., breaks down the contract and Medicare traps that can turn a panel-shrinking strategy into a legal problem.

New YouGov data rank what patients consider before accepting care, and several of the top factors run straight through your front office.

PYA's Tynan Kugler breaks down the four forces pulling physician pay in competing directions, and why getting the underlying compensation model wrong can be expensive and legally complicated to undo.

For the first time in years, physician pay and productivity have split, and a new Medicare efficiency adjustment is about to make 2026 a hard year to benchmark, schedule and recruit.

Two new federal programs are opening Medicare and Medicaid coverage for GLP-1 obesity drugs, and Tracy Zvenyach, Ph.D., M.S., RN, of the Obesity Action Coalition explains what it means for primary care physicians and their patients.