It is often assumed that hospital- and system-owned practices consistently underperform their physician-owned peers. But like many assumptions, reality differs as the MGMA DataDive benchmarks tell a more nuanced story: While many hospital-/IDS-owned practices report poorer performance than the physician-owned median, the top-quartile hospital-/IDS-owned groups operate at a dramatically different performance level — one that can exceed private practices on multiple core measures.

An underutilized capability in MGMA DataDive is the ability to categorize organizational performance into quartiles based on selected prime metrics. For the MGMA DataDive Financials and Operations, a particularly revealing metric is total medical revenue after total operating cost per FTE physician — a key practice performance indicator used by practice management experts to measure an organization’s overall profitability from practice operations.

Total medical revenue after total operating cost per FTE physician reflects whether clinical operations generate enough income to cover staff compensation/benefits and the cost of facility, equipment, supplies, insurance, and other operating expenses. Because physician and advanced practice provider (APP) compensation and benefits is not included in operating cost, this metric functions as the practice’s operating margin. It also allows a direct comparison of hospital-/system-owned practices to private practices which use this amount to compensate physician owners and other clinicians.