The MGMA Focus | Staffing Conference presents a curated lineup of rigorously evaluated human resources management and staffing content that is solution-oriented and targeted at addressing the most significant challenges in healthcare today. Gain insights from experts across various session formats, including interactive sessions, lectures and more.
By attending live sessions, attendees can qualify for up to the following credit totals: ACMPE: 8.5 | ACHE: 7 | CEU: 8.5 | CME (*AAPC): 7 | CPE: 8.4 | PDC: 7 Click here for details on these credit offerings.
Thursday, August 15
Registration Open 7:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Networking Session 10:00 - 11:00 AM
Navigating Staffing Challenges with Fellow Attendees
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | CEU: 1
Interactive | Basic | Comprehension
Operational Efficiency
Kick off the conference by joining fellow attendees to discuss key staffing challenges in the industry. Participants will join roundtables organized by state and topical interests to help them make meaningful connections. The moderated networking session will start with four key questions to start the discussion and foster problem-solving with for staffing challenges.
Learning objectives:
- Discuss key challenges facing healthcare organizations
- Share solutions with fellow healthcare executives
Passing Break 11:00 – 11:15 AM
Main Stage Session 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
MS1: People First: The Best Medicine for Healthcare’s Staffing Challenges
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Advanced | Traditional | Evaluation
Leading People
Speaker: Amy Lafko, MSPT, MBA, Keynote Speaker, Author, and Chief Executive Officer, Carin Consulting Solutions; Independent Consultant, MGMA
There is no magic pill or instant fix for staffing challenges — but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer. Join Amy Lafko as she reveals the People First method — a roadmap designed to transform every phase of the employee lifecycle. Discover why the success of practices depends on both skilled leaders and well-designed systems to support their people.
With humor and storytelling from her personal and professional experience, Amy shares tangible systems, strategies and tools that will support leaders on their quest for employee engagement that drives their business imperatives.
Learning objectives:
- Utilize the People First Method to examine the phases of the employee lifecycle
- Create a roadmap for your employee journey that will boost engagement and retention
- Establish priorities for your team’s success
Lunch and Networking 12:15 - 1:45 PM
CON100 Series 1:45 - 2:45 PM
CON101: Driving Change: Lean Collaboration in Physician-Allied Health Teams
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Intermediate | Application | Traditional
Operational Efficiency
Speakers: Michelle Nordland, MAOL, Manager, Value Creation, Mayo Clinic
Eric Reeve, Operations Administrator, Mayo Clinic
Healthcare outcomes and operational efficiency can significantly improve when physicians and allied health team members shift from seeing themselves as separate entities to working collaboratively within the healthcare system. Incorporating Lean principles into healthcare practices offers a pathway to bolster teamwork, optimize processes and ultimately advance the quality of patient care. By embracing these principles, participants will gain a thorough understanding of key Lean tenets, which include reducing waste, fostering continuous improvement and the paramount importance of respecting individuals. This session will help participants apply Lean principles, strengthening partnerships between physicians and allied health professionals and leading to a more integrated, patient-centered healthcare system.
Learning objectives:
- Discover Lean principles and how they can be adapted to healthcare settings
- Employ strategies for optimizing workflows, leading to more efficient resource allocation and time management
- Apply Lean practices to improve patient outcomes and teamwork through standardization and collaboration
CON102: Business Intelligence for Staffing and Productivity
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Intermediate | Analysis | Traditional
Workforce Planning
Speaker: Nate Moore, CPA, MBA, FACMPE, President, Moore Solutions, Inc.
Is your practice feeling the effects of quiet quitting and the Great Resignation? Are you resigned to less productive staff, especially those working from home? What are savvy managers doing to monitor, trend and increase productivity in their practices? How can better data help practices be more efficient with the office staff who remain? What about managers’ productivity? What tools and techniques are available to help you be more productive? This session will offer a unique approach to collaborative learning. Attendees will see examples of custom dashboards, reports and spreadsheets that practices across the United States are using to measure and improve productivity. Gain insights from top performers to rethink staff management and drive change amidst challenging times.
Learning objectives:
- Discuss current staffing challenges within medical practices
- Identify practice productivity-based reports that drive change
- Explain new ways to monitor, trend and increase practice productivity
CON103: Hosted by Maine MGMA - Details coming soon!
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Refreshment Break 2:45 - 3:00 PM
CON200 Series 3:00 - 4:00 PM
CON201: Staffing Data, So What? Translating Data into Action
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Intermediate | Interactive | Analysis
Workforce Planning
Speaker: Amy Lafko, MSPT, MBA, Keynote Speaker, Author, and Chief Executive Officer, Carin Consulting Solutions; Independent Consultant, MGMA
Medical practices continue to struggle with staffing challenges and are inundated with data, from compensation and turnover rates to staffing ratios per physician FTE. But simply having access to this data is not enough – the real challenge lies in transforming it into actionable solutions that drive operational excellence. This session empowers attendees to do just that, leveraging MGMA's extensive benchmarking data to develop practical strategies that address theses staffing needs. By turning staffing data into action, medical practices can improve productivity, enhance patient access, and position themselves for sustainable success.
Learning objectives:
- Examine MGMA’s benchmarking data to identify areas of strength and needs for improvement within your organization
- Develop data-driven strategies for every aspect of the employee lifecycle (selection through retention)
- Prioritize and implement action steps that have lasting impact on staffing within your practice
CON202: Employee Turnover: Why Your Team is Leaving and What to Do About It
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 |ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Intermediate | Interactive | Analysis
Retention
Speakers: Tracey Schwartz, M.Ed., FACMPE, Vice President, Operations, Ascension Medical Group
Robyn Hoffman, MBA, MSPT, Director of Physician Operations, Ascension Medical Group
Employee turnover is an increasing challenge for many organizations. The healthcare workforce has changed significantly since the pandemic, leading to increased costs, reduced productivity and loss of valuable talent. With associates leaving healthcare for early retirement, exiting the industry completely or opting for remote work over on-site employment, retaining tenured and recently hired associates is increasingly challenging, and profitability has suffered as a result of increasing labor and supply costs and declining reimbursement. This financial burden has pressured healthcare systems to increase productivity with fewer resources, further challenging current staffing levels. Employee turnover has associated high costs and leads to declining quality patient care and satisfaction along with reduced employee morale. This presentation will identify key drivers of voluntary turnover and enable attendees to measure and analyze targeted areas for effective improvement strategies to impact job satisfaction and retention. Attendees will learn how our organization standardized our understanding for resignations and implementation strategies for retaining associates. Strategies include leadership training on relationship building, effective onboarding, career development opportunities, enhanced communication through newsletters and town halls, work-life balance initiatives, and other employment engagement and retention tactics. The session also will review compensation design for challenging roles to fill and retain.
Learning objectives:
- Outline key drivers of voluntary turnover and they relate to targeted areas for improvement
- Prepare effective strategies to impact turnover through increased employee job satisfaction
- Analyze the impact of selected interventions, modifying as needed for optimal results
CON203: Hosted by Massachusetts and Rhode Island MGMA – Details coming soon!
4:00 - 4:15 PM
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Passing Break 4:15 - 4:45 PM
CON300 Series 4:15 - 4:45 PM
CON301: Details coming soon!
Eligible for: ACMPE: .5 | CEU .5
CON302: Details coming soon!
Eligible for: ACMPE: .5 | CEU .5
CON303: Details coming soon!
Eligible for: ACMPE: .5 | CEU .5
Dedicated Exhibitor Time and Reception 4:45 - 6:00 PM
Dinner Groups (Pre-Registration Required) 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Friday, August 16
Registration Open 7:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Breakfast 7:30 - 8:00 AM
CON400 Series 8:00 – 9:00 AM
CON401: Optimizing Your Recruitment and Onboarding Process
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Traditional | Basic | Comprehension
Recruiting and Onboarding
Speaker: Adrienne Lloyd MHA, FACHE, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Optimize Healthcare; Independent Consultant, MGMA
Recruiting top talent is vital as your organization grows and seeks to meet new strategic priorities. However, recruitment and onboarding can be time-consuming, burdensome, and dreaded. This session will explore how to design your processes to automate recruitment and onboarding while maintaining a high level of personalization for candidates to ensure that the process is fun and reflective of your organizational culture.
Learning objectives:
- Describe ways to streamline the recruitment and onboarding processes, automating where possible
- Explain how to screen and interview candidates to hire and retain them
- Discover ways to engage new hires throughout the onboarding process so they become high-performing team members
CON402: Compensation and Benefits Strategies for Staff
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Interactive | Intermediate | Application
Compensation and Benefits
Speaker: Sharon E. Sagarra, MBA, FACMPE, Owner, Sagarra Medical Consulting, LLC; Independent Consultant, MGMA
With minimum wage rates increasing while insurance reimbursements decrease, every dollar counts in the medical practice, regardless of size or ownership. A medical practice's most important asset (and one of the biggest expenses) is its staff. By strategically controlling costs and maximizing benefit utilization, medical practices must look for more opportunities to invest (or reinvest) in their staff, thus boosting practice success and employee satisfaction and well-being. This interactive session will look at attracting and retaining employees through meaningful compensation and benefits packages. Attendees are encouraged to share their experiences of what has or has not worked in their practices.
Learning objectives:
- Outline effective compensation rates using multiple sources of data
- Examine benefit package strategies to satisfy a multigenerational workforce
- Produce an "Employee Value Statement" at year-end
CON403: Hosted by New Hampshire and Vermont MGMA – Details coming soon!
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Refreshment Break with Exhibitors 9:45 - 10:45 AM
CON500 Series 9:45 – 10:45 AM
CON501: Top 10 Ways Practices are Outsourcing and Automating
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Traditional | Comprehension | Basic
Operational Efficiency
Speaker: Katie Nunn, MBA, CMPE, Chief Executive Officer, Bright Ideas Medical Consulting; Independent Consultant, MGMA
Inflation and rising wages are causing practices to look for ways to do more with less. This session will look at the top 10 things that practices are doing to become more efficient and less dependent on internal staff via outsourcing and/or automating. From Population Health to Virtual Management, we will talk about the pros and cons of the hottest outsourcing trends.
Learning objectives:
- Identify ways that practices are outsourcing /automating to reduce staffing needs
- Describe the pros and cons of outsourcing and automating
- Discover the processes all practices should have automated
CON502: Developing an Employee Wellness Program in Your Practice
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Traditional | Intermediate | Application
Compensation and Benefits
Speaker: Bill Kenney, MHA, CMPE FACHE, Chief Executive Officer, Dermatology Consultants, PA
Dermatology Consultants identified the need for an employee wellness program, gained leadership and physician support, engaged management and staff to define the program and successfully implemented it, resulting in high levels of employee engagement. The presenter will discuss the branding, infrastructure, program elements and specific activities which could be adapted to practices of various sizes. The presenter will provide several visual tools which could be adapted to other practices.
Learning objectives:
- Discover the elements required to develop the infrastructure for an employee wellness program, including brand image, organizational communications, committee structure and outcomes
- Produce engagement with physician and administrative leadership for employee wellness improvements
- Manage successful interventions and activities that can be adapted to other practices
Passing Break 10:45 - 11:00 AM
CON600 Series 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
CON601: Creating Your Provider Recruitment Playbook
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Traditional | Intermediate | Application
Recruiting and Onboarding
Speaker: Liz Mahan, MFA, CPRP-DEI, Director of Professional Development and Solutions, Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment
There hasn’t been a "recruitment playbook" for practices to use in recruiting and retaining top provider talent. Why? The necessary strategies to attract physicians and advanced practice providers must be unique to the needs of the practice, patients and communities they serve. It starts by identifying candidates who will uphold the mission and values and be a strong cultural fit to the practice and community. This session will explore strategies to adapt and leverage to realize success— “must haves” you need in place prior to initiating a recruitment search. You will be given examples and situations to help you sidestep potential mishaps. This presentation will provide stakeholders with key elements and best practices that will help guide your engagement and input into the process. We’ll discuss the importance of identifying the purpose of the position and attributes of your ideal candidate so that appropriate strategies are developed to attract physicians to your organization while avoiding a mismatch of talent to the position. Attendees will be able to critically evaluate their roles and programs to maximize recruitment success.
Learning objectives:
- Discover the key skills (hard and soft) and attributes a physician or advanced practice provider must have to be an ideal fit for the practice, organization and community.
- Employ a strategic recruitment process that fosters the retention of top clinical talent.
- Manage your role and your program to maximize recruitment success.
CON602: Leadership Rewired: Neuroscience for Peak Performance
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Basic | Traditional | Comprehension
Leading People
Speaker: Katie Lawrence, MHA, CMPE, Principal Consultant, Willow Strategy Group; Independent Consultant, MGMA
Today's relentless healthcare landscape does a leader no favors. They must juggle what often seem to be competing priorities: quality of care, practice growth, financial stability, employee well-being, efficiency, patient satisfaction, access, physician wellness, complex revenue cycles and so many more. The true challenge lies in guiding the team to achieve peak performance amidst the chaos.
To overcome these obstacles, leaders need new tools along with a fresh perspective on familiar ones. It's about tapping into the brain's intelligence, the heart's compassion and the gut's instinct — the intellectual, emotional and physical knowledge inherent in every leader and every team member. Through this session, leaders will understand the motivational forces that can drive their teams to unparalleled heights. They will gain skills and knowledge to better utilize the diverse intellectual, emotional, and physical assets each of their team members has within. Peak performance, without exhaustion, burnout, or a totally new team, is not just possible — it’s within your grasp!
Learning objectives:
- Recognize the unconscious needs of each team member and how meeting those needs improves their commitment to the organization
- Explain the three components of intelligence and why each is critical for peak performance
- Identify best practices for creating a culture that motivates employees to peak performance
Lunch and Networking 12:00 - 1:00 PM
Networking Session 1:00 – 2:00 PM
CON701: Prioritizing Solutions and Building an Action Plan for Staffing Challenges
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Interactive | Basic | Comprehension
Operational Efficiency
Facilitator: Katie Nunn, MBA, CMPE, Chief Executive Officer, Bright Ideas Medical Consulting; Independent Consultant, MGMA
Before we return home, let's harness the collective knowledge of the attendees to help identify and prioritize the best solutions from the Staffing conference. Participants will again join roundtables organized by state and topical interest to share insights in this moderated and structured networking session.
Learning objectives:
- Prioritize solutions to key staffing challenges facing healthcare organizations
- Build an Action Plan to impactful solutions
Passing Break 2:00 – 2:15 PM
Main Stage Session 2:15 – 3:15 PM
MS2: From Awareness to Action: Building Stronger Teams Together
Eligible for: ACMPE: 1 | ACHE: 1 | CEU: 1 | CME(AAPC*): 1 | CPE: 1.2 | PDC: 1
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
Basic | Traditional | Comprehension
Speaker: Katie Lawrence, MHA, CMPE, Principal Consultant, Willow Strategy Group; Independent Consultant, MGMA
Enlighted leaders know that building a culture that is diverse, equitable and inclusive is not just the right thing to do. The impact of embracing DEI hits every aspect of the Quintuple Aim: improving the quality of care, enhancing patient experience, reducing costs, addressing clinician and employee experience, and advancing health equity.
To continue to transform the healthcare industry, medical practice leaders must become capable of embracing diversity and working toward equity and inclusion. Despite good intentions, leaders are uncomfortable addressing these issues because they don’t want to say or do the wrong thing.
Through this session, leaders will understand why DEI is crucial for their workplace and what often stands in the way of successful DEI initiatives. They will walk away with skills and knowledge to implement change that begins with diversity and expands to embrace equity and inclusion.
Learning objectives:
- Recognize the importance of shared language around DEI initiatives and the positive impact of DEI on a broad range of organizational metrics
- Identify the hurdles that often slow the progress of DEI work in organizations
- Review tools and actions for DEI work within their own organizations