Despite how often the topic is discussed in healthcare circles, the last time MGMA Stat asked practice leaders point-blank whether they were burned out, the iPhone X was new and prior authorization was still a top complaint. The question hasn't aged and neither, it seems, has the answer.

In our Oct. 13, 2026, MGMA Stat poll, 62% of medical practice leaders said yes, they feel burned out in their job. Another 22% said “somewhat,” and 16% said no. The poll had 418 applicable responses. Taken together, 84% reported at least some degree of burnout.

The same question in June 2018 drew 45% “yes” and 28% “somewhat,” a combined 73%.¹ The “yes” share is 17 points higher this year; the “no” share is 11 points lower.

What you told us

Each group got a different follow-up: the burned-out were asked what's driving it, the somewhat-burned-out what would help, and the rest what has worked.

The W word

Workload. Roughly six in 10 of the “yes” comments name it, and dozens of respondents wrote nothing else. About three in 10 cite staffing gaps or turnover, nearly one in five cite payer friction — denials, downcoding, prior authorization, “fighting for every dollar” — and about one in 12 name no time off.² A similar share point upward rather than outward: absent or conflicting leadership, disengaged physician owners, a corporate structure that leaves no autonomy. Roughly one in 12 simply answered “all of the above.”

The longer answers show how the categories stack. One leader described staffing shortages that spread work across an already thin team until several people were overwhelmed, “so I try to take on more” to relieve them. Another is covering a second manager's role and clinic on top of two clinics of their own. A third counts 10 departments requesting information and meetings, each with a deadline. Several tie the load to the calendar: 2027 payer changes, Medicare and Medicaid compliance deadlines, a Medicare audit, year-end.

A few have done the math on their own exit. “Too many responsibilities for one person, it's time to retire!” one wrote. And one respondent summarized the reason this poll exists: “There's always discussions and sessions on provider burnout; however, nobody ever talks about administrator burnout.”

What keeps “somewhat” from becoming “yes”: Real time off

Asked what would make the biggest difference, about four in 10 of the “somewhat” group gave some version of the same answer: real time off. Roughly one in four asked for another FTE, an assistant or a supervisory layer; about one in five would delegate a function; about one in 10 would fix a workflow. A handful named pay, physician support or a leave of absence for recovery. One wrote “retirement,” and one, “getting younger.”

The fine print is where it gets honest. Delegation sounds simple until you need “a person like me I can delegate to.” One HR leader measures the gap at one to nearly three FTEs below benchmark; others can't find staff at all, “especially CMAs.” And one respondent named the trap most leaders will recognize: constantly fighting fires while building new things, with no time to prevent the fires they see every day.

What's working for the 16%

Four of the leaders who said they aren't burned out gave the same two-word answer: changed jobs. The most reliable cure on record, it turns out, is a new employer.

The rest read like the “somewhat” group's wish list, already granted. They control the calendar: a four-day week, remote Fridays, a schedule that doesn't push too many patients into a day. They set boundaries: notifications off, work email contained to work hours, a cell number not handed out freely. They delegate, and they trust the experienced teams they built to catch what they hand off. Several credited supportive, transparent leadership above them, a few credited family, and one credited AI with saving work.

And some of them just like the job. “Never a dull moment,” one wrote; another loves the variety; another stacks small wins toward larger strategic goals. No one in this group reported having less to do. They reported having more say over it.

The drivers are the same ones respondents gave our Dec. 2, 2025, stress poll — staffing, payer denials, rising overhead, “do more with less” expectations, regulatory churn — and the few whose stress fell then credited the same levers: a role change, peer support, professional development.³ Ten months later, that list hasn't changed. Only the share of leaders willing to call it burnout has.

Burnout was everywhere in MGMA's 2026 — mostly physicians’

Burnout is a constant in healthcare news, but it is almost always physician burnout, with practice leaders cast as the people managing it rather than experiencing it.

MGMA's 2026 Regulatory Burden Report found 77% of responding practices named regulatory burden a significant factor in physician burnout, more than half had lost a physician to burnout in the past three years, and 40% now keep at least three full-time administrative staff per physician on prior authorization, denials and quality reporting.⁴ An April 28 MGMA Stat poll found 33% of medical groups had a physician retire or leave in the past year because of burnout, up from 27% in September 2024.⁵ Jeff Smith, MBA, CPA, CGMA, FACMPE, CEO of Piedmont Healthcare and MGMA board chair, carried those numbers to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging in February; on an April MGMA Insights episode, he added that burnout isn't confined to clinicians and that front-desk staff may hold the hardest job in healthcare.⁶

At the 100th MGMA Annual Conference, Sept. 27-30 in San Antonio — the largest since the pandemic, acting CEO Akash Madiah, MBA, told the opening session — the emcee introduced the administrators in the room as “chaos coordinators,” one of the titles leaders had given themselves in our Sept. 8 poll on the functions added to their jobs.^7,8 Two sessions came closest to leaders' own burnout. Katie Lawrence, PsyD, MHA, CMPE, of Willow Strategy Group presented “More than Resilience: Thriving as a Healthcare Leader,” built on her survey of healthcare executives: adaptive performance and political skill were the strongest of seven competencies predicting thriving, which she defines as vitality plus learning and growth, not simply the absence of burnout.^9,10

Jeff Whitehorn, MBA, LFACHE, a 25-year hospital CEO, drew a capacity crowd Sept. 28 for “Culture CPR.” He opened by asking the room to name its No. 1 job responsibility, then supplied his own answer as an acronym, KYBBOYBB: keep your boss's boss off your boss's back.¹¹ The laugh line doubles as a job description for the practice administrator, the layer that absorbs pressure from above so the people below can work. His prescription — celebration, purpose and reality — is aimed at staff retention; he cited first-year turnover of 25% to 35% in physician practices and, in a pre-conference interview, described “quiet cracking,” people struggling silently until burnout pushes them out.^11,12 One slide spoke to the leaders in the room rather than their staff. Citing DDI's Global Leadership Forecast, Whitehorn showed the share of frontline leaders who find their job purposeful falling from 44% in 2020 to 35% in 2024, while C-level leaders rose to 67%. The purpose gap widens the farther a leader sits from the C-suite.¹¹

In August, Harvard psychologist David Klemanski told the MGMA Insights podcast that stress “is becoming chronic and it's no longer episodic,” and that the time to learn a five-minute reset is before the bad day, not during it.¹³

It’s not just you: Managers everywhere are wearing down

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 found manager engagement fell from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025, with the steepest drop in the final year, and that leaders are more likely than individual contributors to report a lot of stress, anger, sadness and loneliness the previous day.¹⁴ Healthcare research on administrative leaders is thinner. A Journal of Rural Health survey of 288 executive leaders at two rural health organizations found 40.2% burned out and 49.8% intending to leave their administrative roles within two years; low work control, low trust in the organization and high stress were the factors tied to burnout.¹⁵ The Harris Poll's 2026 Healthcare Workforce Barometer, fielded for education-benefits firm Workforce Edge, found 51% of healthcare employers named burnout and emotional fatigue the top reason staff leave, up 15 points from 2025.¹⁶ And a 2025 mixed-methods study of health system administrative staff found them scoring low on an abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory while nearly every interviewee described acute burnout — a reminder that instruments built for clinicians may undercount it, and that a plain yes/somewhat/no may catch what a scale misses.¹⁷

Five moves for confronting burnout

1. Treat every “somewhat” is an early warning. Whitehorn's “quiet cracking” describes staff who struggle silently until they leave; the same dynamic applies to the manager one level up.¹² The “somewhat” group already told us what would keep them from tipping: real time off first, then another pair of hands. One of Whitehorn's “reality” tools fits the first request: paid mental health days, taken with “no guilt, no justification.”¹¹ Neither is free, but both are cheaper than replacing an administrator.
2. Give work away on purpose. The September poll showed leaders absorbing clerical gap-filling,⁸ and MGMA’s guidance on moving from operations leader to executive starts with the work you hand off.¹⁸ Pair that with a list of the jobs only one person in your practice knows how to do; those single points of failure are what keep you answering email on vacation.¹⁹ Whitehorn borrowed his version of the rule from an Ole Miss defensive line coach: “Everything that gets your attention doesn't deserve your energy.”¹¹
3. Build coverage so you can actually be unavailable. Leaders who could unplug in 2025 credited competent assistants and stronger management teams, not willpower, and the leaders who aren't burned out this year describe the same thing: a team they trust, a four-day week or remote Fridays, and a phone that stops buzzing after hours.² Backup coverage for the administrator belongs in the staffing plan alongside provider coverage.
4. Put leader well-being on the leadership agenda. Add well-being to leadership-team discussions and extending coaching and peer groups to managers, not just physicians.^20,3 Whitehorn's list of what's working includes leadership training aimed at middle managers, not only executives.¹¹ Lawrence's research adds a specific habit: learn a competency, then talk it through with a coach, mentor or colleague in a 15-minute conversation.⁹
5. Start smaller than you think. Klemanski's study used practices of about 10 minutes a day over two weeks; participants kept doing them afterward, and motivation rose.¹³ Comer's version is a daily five-minute “off switch.”³ Neither replaces fixing the staffing model, but both work on the days the model hasn't been fixed yet.

Eight years ago, 45% of practice leaders told us they were burned out. At 62% today, the condition has worsened, and the people who answered this poll are the same people organizing the staff surveys and wellness programs for everyone else. Organizations working on physician burnout should invest a look at the person running that effort, who is quietly working through another weekend. Whitehorn closed his session with Zach Mercurio's “power of mattering”: people stay where they are noticed, affirmed and needed.¹¹ The respondent who wrote that nobody talks about administrator burnout was asking for the first of those three.

Join MGMA Stat

To join the MGMA Stat panel, text "STAT" to 33550 or visit www.mgma.com/mgma-stat.  

Notes

1. Green C. “Stress and burnout a growing concern for healthcare leaders.” MGMA. Sept. 7, 2022. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/mgma-stats/stress-and-burnout-a-growing-concern-for-healthcare-leaders
2. Harrop C. “Out of office but not out of reach: Why practice leaders need a real break.” Nov. 19, 2025. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/mgma-stat/out-of-office-but-not-out-of-reach-real-time-off
3. Harrop C. “Stress check at year's end for a better, more manageable 2026.” MGMA. Dec. 3, 2025. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/mgma-stat/stress-check-for-a-better-2026
4. MGMA. 2026 Regulatory Burden Report. April 9, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/federal-policy-resources/april-9-2026-regulatory-burden-report
5. MGMA HR Insights. “Physician burnout and early retirement: The pressure medical groups can't afford to ignore.” MGMA. April 29, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/mgma-stat/physician-burnout-and-early-retirement-the-pressure-medical-groups-cant-afford-to-ignore
6. Williams D. “From Capitol Hill to the Clinic: Incoming MGMA Board Chair Jeff Smith on Burnout, Prior Authorization, and the Future of Care.” MGMA Insights Podcast, Ep. 760, April 7, 2026. Available from: https://mgma-podcasts.transistor.fm/760
7. Littrell A. “MGMA opens centennial conference crediting practice leaders for the work patients never see.” Medical Economics, Sept. 28, 2026. Available from: https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/mgma-opens-centennial-conference-crediting-practice-leaders-for-the-work-patients-never-see
8. Harrop C. “Congratulations, you're now the Chief Everything Officer.” MGMA. Sept. 17, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/mgma-stat/congratulations-youre-now-chief-everything-officer  
9. Payerchin R. “What employees want, what organizations need, and how administrative leaders bridge the gap.” Physicians Practice, Oct. 6, 2026. Available from: https://www.physicianspractice.com/view/what-employees-want-what-organizations-need-and-how-administrative-leaders-bridge-the-gap
10. Payerchin R. “How health care leaders can thrive, not just survive, in a changing environment.” Medical Economics, Oct. 7, 2026. Available from: https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/how-health-care-leaders-can-thrive-not-just-survive-in-a-changing-environment
11. Whitehorn J. “Culture CPR: Administer Immediately to Invigorate Culture and Boost Employee Retention.” Presentation, MGMA 2026 Annual Conference, San Antonio, Sept. 28, 2026. Turnover figures attributed in the presentation to the 2025 NSI retention survey. Purpose-gap figures attributed to DDI's Global Leadership Forecast; “Power of mattering” from Mercurio Z. The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance. Harvard Business Review Press, 2025. Coaching quote is attributed to Randall Joyner, defensive line coach, University of Mississippi.
12. Payerchin R. “How improving workplace culture can become your new employee retention strategy.” Physicians Practice, Sept. 25, 2026. Available from: https://www.physicianspractice.com/view/how-improving-workplace-culture-can-become-your-new-employee-retention-strategy
13. Luckett C. “The 5-Minute Reset: Why Mindfulness May Be a Workflow Tool for Burned-Out Medical Practices.” MGMA Insights Podcast, Aug. 19, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/podcasts/the-5-minute-reset-mindfulness-medical-practice-burnout
14. Gallup. State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report. Gallup, Inc., 2026. Available from: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
15. Sullivan EE, Stephenson AL, DePuccio MJ, Anderson B, Auxier B, Henderson J, Linzer M. “Workplace factors related to health care leader well-being in rural settings.” J Rural Health. 2025 Jan;41(1):e12863. doi: 10.1111/jrh.12863. Epub 2024 Jul 2. PMID: 38956817.
16. Littrell A. “59% of health care workers say they will look for a new job in the next year, and employers guess 39%.” Physicians Practice, Sept. 16, 2026. Available from: https://www.physicianspractice.com/view/59-of-health-care-workers-say-they-will-look-for-a-new-job-in-the-next-year-and-employers-guess-39-
17. Johnson T. “Unseen but essential: Administrative staff burnout in health systems.” Health Data Management, July 17, 2025. Available from: https://www.healthdatamanagement.com/articles/unseen-but-essential-administrative-staff-burnout-in-health-systems
18. MGMA HR Insights. “Moving from operations leader to executive starts with the work you give away.” MGMA. Oct. 5, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/articles/moving-from-operations-leader-to-executive
19. MGMA Operations Management Insights. “The jobs only one person knows how to do in your practice.” MGMA. July 24, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/articles/the-jobs-only-one-person-knows-how-to-do-in-your-practice
20. Fleet A. “The 2026 Practice Leaders Action Plan: 7 Moves to Start the Year Strong.” MGMA, 2026. Available from: https://www.mgma.com/2026actionplan