Medical practice staff pay cooled in 2025 but remains well above five-year levels, MGMA data shows

Median total compensation fell for more than half of the core support and clinical roles that keep medical practices running in 2025, but new MGMA benchmarks show those wages remain far higher than they were five years ago, leaving practice leaders little room to budget for relief in 2027.

The figures come from the 2026 MGMA DataDive Management and Staff Compensation Data Report, built on data from more than 215,300 health care professionals in more than 4,100 groups. Median total compensation rose for eight of the 18 core benchmarked roles last year and fell in 10, yet pay climbed over the past five years in 17 of those 18 roles. The one-year cooling, in other words, did almost nothing to undo a half-decade of structural wage growth.

The roles still gaining ground

Licensed practical nurses posted the largest one-year jump, with median total compensation up 6.5 percent, ahead of general accounting positions at 5.7 percent, medical receptionists at 4.8 percent and medical assistants at 4.3 percent. Over five years, the roles closest to patient access and clinical throughput have climbed the most: medical receptionists are up 22.0 percent, medical assistants 20.6 percent, LPNs 29.7 percent and triage nurses 15.3 percent.

Still hard to hire

Those are also the roles practices struggle most to fill. MGMA found medical assistant hiring grew more difficult over the past year for 56 percent of practices, and the broader market has not loosened. Trent Cotton, head of talent insights at iCIMS, told Physicians Practice that clinical job applications jumped 10 percent at the start of 2026 even as the gap between open positions and actual hires kept widening, and that the data does not show practices have regained leverage on pay. He urged practices to list compensation in job postings to keep the hiring funnel clean and to compete on candidate experience rather than wait for the market to ease.

Lower pay, same pressure

Even the roles that dipped stayed expensive. Managed care administrative positions fell 12.1 percent in 2025 and patient accounting fell 2.9 percent, but both remain well above five- and 10-year levels, and MGMA cautioned that practices underbudgeting here risk revenue cycle problems while authorizations, denials and portal burden stay heavy. The squeeze behind those decisions is familiar to practice leaders. Andy Swanson, MPA, FACMPE, chief customer success officer at MGMA, told Physicians Practice at the association’s 2025 Leaders Conference that falling payment and rising cost had created an “untenable squeeze,” pointing to Medicare rate cuts, private payers following suit and climbing uncompensated care. He framed technology as the response: “We’re talking about systems that can augment staff or fill vacancies when positions can’t be filled,” he said.

Pairing pay with automation

That tension is shaping how leaders budget. MGMA reporting found 37 percent named workforce as their biggest area of new investment for 2026, followed by health IT at 30 percent. In a separate poll, automation at 36 percent and process fixes at 23 percent made up more than half of planned cost-cutting moves. A June 2026 MGMA Stat poll found 68 percent of leaders had not yet redesigned a role or adjusted staffing with the help of AI, while 26 percent had, mostly through small changes in scheduling, registration, prior authorization, billing and call-center work.

Geography, tenure and inflation

Geography still widens the gaps. Registered nurse pay varied by $22,947 between the West and Midwest, and triage nurses by $19,448 between the South and East. Long tenure, by contrast, is buying little: the 2025 median for nursing positions with 21 or more years of experience was just $298 higher than for those with five or fewer years, a compression problem that can push experienced staff to look elsewhere. Inflation has trimmed even the nominal gains. Adjusted for cost of living over the same five years, medical receptionists, MAs, LPNs and RNs still came out ahead, while patient accounting staff and triage nurses landed slightly behind.

Five ways to compete on pay without breaking the budget

The benchmarks point to a familiar to-do list, and Physicians Practice has covered the tactics that hold up.

1. Lead with pay, but right-size the raise. Increased salary is the top reason staff stay, and the bump need not be large. In one survey cited by Physicians Practice, most workers who got a raise received just 1 to 3 percent of base salary, alongside low-cost extras like childcare stipends or commuter benefits.
2. Read turnover by role, not the headline rate. A 10 percent overall rate can look fine while masking heavy losses in nursing or the business office. A Physicians Practice turnover playbook recommends calculating the rate, watching for patterns by department and surveying staff to learn why people leave before they go.
3. Run regular market checks on every role. Pay drifts out of line quietly. Physicians Practice advises conducting regular market analyses so compensation tracks industry standards, then pairing fair pay with a visible path to advancement.
4. Stretch the budget with low-cost perks. When a big raise is out of reach, Physicians Practice points to training, flexible hours, recognition programs and small rewards as inexpensive ways to keep good staff and reinforce the value of the work.
5. Build the pipeline before you need it. With hiring still slow, Trent Cotton told Physicians Practice that understaffed practices should re-engage strong past applicants and line up candidates now, rather than starting from scratch when the next vacancy hits.