Staff turnover is no longer moving against most medical groups at the same pace it did during the post-pandemic labor shock, but it’s still a concern for a sizable share of practice leaders.

Our May 26, 2026, MGMA Stat poll asked medical practice leaders how staff turnover in their organization this year compares to last year. Nearly seven in 10 medical group leaders (69%) reported that turnover was about the same (39%) or lower (30%) compared to 2025, while 28% reported higher turnover and 2% were unsure. The poll had 303 applicable responses.

Those results are nearly identical to our May 2025 poll, in which 70% reported staff turnover rates were the same or lower compared to 2024. The calmer turnover environment gives practice leaders a window to strengthen retention systems, because it is clear the staffing problem has not been solved.

What you told us

• Practices reporting higher turnover described a multi-role pattern of strain, most often concentrated in medical assistants (MAs), nursing and other clinical support roles, and front-desk or administrative staff. Some respondents also pointed to provider, billing and RCM departures. These practices seem to be managing turnover reactively: filling gaps with temporary staff, adjusting pay where possible, expanding recruiting pipelines and, in some cases, building internal training programs to create the talent they cannot reliably find in the market.
• In practices where turnover held steady, the pressure points are similar but more controlled. MAs and front-desk/entry-level administrative roles remain the most common churn points, along with nursing and RCM roles. The difference is that these organizations more often describe using retention tactics rather than a scramble to backfill: bonuses or wage increases, four-day workweeks or other scheduling flexibility, stay interviews, training, advancement pathways and efforts to improve culture and manager support. The turnover problem has not disappeared, but it appears more actively managed.
• Practices reporting lower turnover most often credited improvement in the same role categories where churn has historically been hardest to contain: MAs, front desk, clinical support and other patient-facing staff. Their responses suggest that improvements coincided with deliberate investments in the employee experience — pay adjustments, better onboarding and training, more predictable scheduling, stronger culture, benefits improvements and clearer career paths. Leaders in this group more often described active retention management than morale-boosting efforts alone.

In other words, while the cooler labor market may have helped, the practices seeing improvement also describe acting on the conditions that lead staff to stay.

Why this matters

Turnover at a medical practice is an operations problem as well as an HR problem. Each departure can slow rooming, age claims work, lengthen call queues, increase overtime and drain institutional knowledge.

Turnover, vacancies and staffing stability are not the same thing

Turnover measures who left. It does not measure whether a practice is fully staffed, how long roles sit open, how much overtime is being used to bridge gaps, or whether the people who stayed are absorbing extra work.

A practice can report lower turnover while still operating with frozen positions, fewer trained float staff, reduced clinic hours, a thin RCM team or an inexperienced front desk. Conversely, a group with steady turnover may be healthier if vacancies are filled quickly and new hires reach competency sooner.

Practice leaders should watch three measures closely: turnover rate, vacancy rate and workload pressure. The workload check should consider overtime hours, callouts, third-next-available appointment, call abandonment, message queue age, denial follow-up age, days in A/R, postponed projects and provider complaints about rooming flow. If turnover improves but those metrics do not, the workforce is not as stable as the turnover number suggests.

Where churn still happens (and what breaks when it does)

The responses to this week’s poll make the patterns clearer: turnover pressure remains concentrated in the jobs that keep clinic flow, access and cash moving — MAs, front-desk and patient access staff, nursing and clinical support roles, with revenue cycle, provider and specialty technical roles appearing in smaller pockets.

This can leave a practice exposed if churn is concentrated in certain roles, with varying consequences:

• MA turnover shows up in rooming time: When  a practice is short on MAs or staffed mostly by new hires learning provider preferences, rooming slows, intake quality drops and visit capacity suffers.
• Front-desk and patient access turnover impacts scheduling and phones: Call abandonment rises, scheduling accuracy falls, check-in and checkout slow down, referral handoffs lag and complaints climb.
• RCM turnover delays cash: Claims submission, denial follow-up, coding review, prior authorization support and patient balance work can age quickly when experienced billers, coders or team leads leave.
• Specialty technologist turnover constrains services: Losing a mammography technologist, X-ray technologist, cardiac sonographer or other tech role can cap appointment availability until coverage is restored.

The retention response should match the role. Front-desk and access teams often need better onboarding, scheduling predictability, de-escalation support and a path to more skilled work. Revenue cycle teams may need targeted remote or hybrid flexibility where duties allow. MA and clinical support roles often need faster ramp-up, consistent provider-team routines and practical career ladders.

Build retention infrastructure while the market is calmer

When turnover is not escalating for most groups, leaders have more room to build the systems that keep turnover manageable when the labor market tightens again. The most practical components include:

• Structured onboarding with 30-, 60- and 90-day milestones: New staff should understand role expectations, provider preferences, and what competency looks like at each stage.
• Stay interviews and newer-hire check-ins: Short, structured conversations with high performers and early-tenure staff can reveal fixable friction before it produces a resignation.
• Manager development and protected time: Manager relationships are consistently identified among the strongest drivers of whether healthcare staff stay or exit — but coaching, feedback and conflict de-escalation require calendar space and senior-leadership backing.
• Peer mentoring and internal mobility: A peer mentor helps new hires navigate the first 90 days, while visible paths from front desk to scheduling, referrals, RCM support or operations roles reduce the sense that advancement requires leaving.
• Scheduling predictability and targeted flexibility. For on-site clinical and access roles, predictable schedules and protected time off matter. For experienced RCM staff, remote or hybrid options can help practices compete where duties allow.
• Specific recognition and compensation calibration. Recognition works best when it names the behavior and result; wage corrections work best when they are paired with internal equity reviews.

Conclusion

This week’s poll hopefully means meaningful progress has been made for some practices, but staffing issues do not seem anywhere near “solved.” Turnover risk may be more manageable but still require the work of measuring: vacancies filling at the pace they open, access holding, the revenue cycle staying current, patient experience remaining steady, and staff carrying a workload that can be repeated month after month, quarter after quarter.