12 ways to celebrate your staff for under $200

Somebody on your staff stayed late in July to fill a hole in the schedule. Probably more than once. Whether anyone said anything about it is a fair question, and it is the one this holiday exists to ask. The good news from MGMA's August Stat poll is that turnover has stopped getting worse. About 69 percent of group leaders said their 2026 turnover was flat or lower than last year. The other 28 percent said it was higher, and they are still losing the same people everybody else is: medical assistants, nurses and whoever is answering the phones.

Losing one of them is expensive in ways that never show up as a single number. There is the job posting, then the weeks of interviews, then the training, then the overtime paid to the people covering the gap, then the slow stretch while the new hire learns where everything is. Ask people why they left and pay comes up, but so does a version of the same complaint: nobody noticed how much they were carrying.

Labor Day is a Monday off, which means it comes and goes without much ceremony at most practices. It does not have to. What follows is a list of ways to say thank you that actually register with the person hearing it. Most cost nothing, a few cost a little and none of them require a party planner. Here are 12.