Patient access: Where medical groups can pull ahead

A recent Kaufman Hall “Physician Flash Report” for the third quarter of 2025 found that medical group investment dropped in September, a first drop since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The median investment or subsidy per provider dipped slightly from $239,338 to $237,911, ending multiple years of quarterly increase. Matthew Bates, managing director and physician enterprise service line lead at Kaufman Hall, told Becker’s that the shift highlights growing operational performance differences, rather than an industrywide slowdown. 

“Operational execution is a huge part of the gap,” he said. “A lot of times people say, “Our market is different, our geography is different.”That’s true sometimes, but really we see material gaps in performance even within the same market, which tells us a lot of this has to do with operational execution.”

Mr. Bates said that patient access has emerged as a strong differentiator between high-and low-performing groups. 

“Patient access is a really important focus area for operational execution, and it turns out access tends to attract and retain a higher percent of commercial patients in the market,” he said. “If you can solve patient access, or do better at patient access, that tends to help you outperform.”

With labor accounting for 84.2% of medical group expenses, Mr. Bates said it’s important for organizations to keep an eye on this area. 

He flagged two ways to think about labor: what organizations are spending on providers, nurse practitioners and physician assistants relative to the amount of patients being seen and how much productivity providers generate per full-time equivalent. 

“If I’m able to do more with the labor that I have, that makes a huge difference,” he said. 

Mr. Bates also pointed to a rising variation in how organizations are using advanced practice providers, which now make up 40% of the workforce. He said it’s important to find an effective physician-advanced practice provider team to dramatically increase productivity and access.

“If we hire a physician assistant and we effectively turn them into a scribe, and their job is to follow around a doctor and take notes, then we have a very expensive scribe, and we don’t get that lift,” he said.

Looking to the future, Mr. Bates expects the performance gap to continue without more intentional leadership.

Bates expects the performance gap to persist without more intentional leadership. 

“What [people] really need to be doing as a leader is say, ‘What physician assistant, doctor team model produces good outcomes? Which model produces more production at a high quality … these are the models that are producing better outcomes, higher productivity and good clinical quality. How do I make sure to replicate those?’”

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