Why Does a Fully Credentialed Locum Still Take Months at Each New Facility?
https://t.co/L3MCnP2M9k
A fully credentialed locum still takes months at each new facility because credentialing does not transfer between facilities; every hospital runs its own primary-source verification and its own medical staff committee cycle, and the agency and the facility often collect the same documents serially instead of once. It is not that the physician's qualifications are in doubt; it is that each facility is required to independently verify and approve, and a quarterly committee plus a slow document pull turns a qualified physician into an unstaffed shift. The fix has four moves: keep one portable, audit-ready credentialing file per provider that is complete on day one, submit it whole rather than in trickled pieces, track only the facility-specific deltas instead of rebuilding the entire packet, and work the committee calendar so the file lands before the cutoff, not after it. We run those moves inside the systems you already use, so a physician who is already good at three hospitals does not wait a full cycle at the fourth. The table of contents maps the whole method; the moves after it are the detail.
Tighter prior auth timelines under CMS-0057-F ⏱️
Practice owners and PA coordinators, this one’s for you.
📋 The windows: Under CMS-0057-F, impacted payers, including Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and CHIP, must generally send prior authorization decisions within 72 hours for expedited requests and 7 calendar days for standard requests. These requirements generally began January 1, 2026.
📊 The reporting: Impacted payers also had to publicly report their first set of prior authorization metrics by March 31, 2026.
🐢 The reality: In a September 2026 MGMA Stat poll, 44% of medical group leaders said prior auth turnaround got slower in 2026 compared with 2025, and fewer than 1 in 10 said it got faster, despite the new federal requirements.
In other words, the windows exist. But someone has to watch them.
If no one on your team is tracking when a payer’s decision is due, an overdue request can sit unnoticed while the patient waits.
The Staffingly solution: 💡
✅ Tracking of CMS-0057-F windows
Requests are tracked against their 72-hour or 7-day decision window, based on the payer and request type.
✅ Daily exception visibility
Each day, you see which requests are past their window or at risk, so your team knows exactly where to follow up.
👉 PA coordinators, do you track payer decision windows today, or only when something goes wrong?
Tell us in the comments. 👇
You Focus on Patient Care. We Handle the Admin. 💜
#PriorAuthorization #CMS0057F #RevenueCycleManagement #PatientAccess #MedicalPractice #Staffingly
#MGMA2026 booth story. On Tuesday in San Antonio, a Practice Manager from a university medical practice in Michigan stopped by the Staffingly booth.
Practice managers keep the lights on. Staffing gaps, phones, schedules, payer calls. All in one day.
Practice managers, what’s the task that eats your afternoon? 👇
Here’s the latest MGMA data on each one: 📊
👥 Staffing gaps: Nearly 3 in 10 medical groups reported higher staff turnover in 2026 than the year before, and 56% said hiring medical assistants got harder (MGMA Stat, May 2026).
📞 Phones: Phones remain a significant bottleneck, consuming staff time on scheduling, eligibility verification, and patient intake (MGMA Stat, March 2026). And more than 1 in 3 medical groups miss 11% or more of calls at peak times (MGMA and Insight Health joint report).
📅 Schedules: 32% of medical groups reported higher no-show rates so far in 2026 compared with 2025, up 5 percentage points from a year earlier (MGMA Stat, August 2026).
💬 Payer calls: 45% of practice leaders said eligibility and prior authorization were their staff’s most time-consuming phone tasks, and 61% had staff logging into seven or more payer portals every week (MGMA Stat, March 2026).
That’s a lot landing on one desk.
At Staffingly, our Virtual Medical Assistants answer calls and handle scheduling, and our team supports eligibility verification, prior authorizations, and payer follow-up, so practice managers can get their afternoons back. 💜
📍 Booth 902 | MGMA 2026 Annual Conference
#MGMA #MGMA2026 #AcademicMedicine #PracticeManagement #HealthcareOperations #PatientAccess #Staffingly
Why Does Bad CAQH Data Keep Resurfacing in Applications We Already Corrected?
https://t.co/yPPJK3Bwsg
Corrected CAQH data keeps resurfacing because payers pull your profile on their own cadence, not yours; a fix you make after a payer has already pulled never reaches the application that is already in flight, so it carries the old data straight to a return. On top of that, if a payer is not authorized in your CAQH settings, it cannot pull at all and works from whatever it has, and a profile that lapses out of attestation goes stale for everyone. The fix has four moves: run a CAQH QC pass before every application wave so the profile is right before anyone pulls it, audit your payer authorizations so every plan you are applying to can actually see the current data, coordinate corrections with submission timing instead of fixing on the fly, and keep the profile attested and current so it does not have to go stale underneath an open application. We run those moves inside the tools you already use, so the data a payer pulls is the data you meant them to see. The table of contents maps the whole method; the moves after it are the detail.
Booth visit from San Antonio. A team member from a medical group spent a few minutes with our team.
MGMA’s theme this year was “From Here Forward.” A good question for any practice.
Where is your practice headed in 2027? 👇
Here’s what the latest data says: 📊
What’s already set for 2027:
💵 Medicare rates: Under CMS’s final 2027 Physician Fee Schedule, released November 4, 2026, the conversion factor drops 2.31% for most clinicians starting January 1, 2027.
📋 Prior authorization: Under CMS-0057-F, impacted payers must generally have a Prior Authorization API in place by January 1, 2027.
Where medical groups are heading:
⚙️ 63% of medical group leaders said their revenue cycle operations are leaning toward more automation (MGMA Stat, October 2026).
🛠️ 34% of medical groups have already used AI to build an app or workflow tool in-house (MGMA Stat, September 2026).
So what does that mean for 2027? 💡
Lower Medicare rates mean every claim and every staff hour counts for more. And most medical groups are heading toward more automation to keep up.
Our answer: let automation handle the repetitive work, and keep trained people on the work that needs judgment, like prior authorizations, payer calls, and coding.
That’s how Staffingly helps medical groups move “From Here Forward.” 💜
What’s your plan for 2027? Tell us in the comments.
📍 Booth 902 | MGMA 2026 Annual Conference
#MGMA #MGMA2026 #FromHereForward #MedicarePFS #HealthcareAI #PracticeManagement #Staffingly
Why Did My Behavioral Health Claim Deny When the Patient's Card Showed Active Coverage?
https://t.co/DpCKZTvkwP
Your behavioral health claim denied on active coverage because the mental health benefit is carved out to a separate managed behavioral health organization, an MBHO like Carelon, Magellan, or Optum Behavioral, and the medical plan's eligibility line will not surface it. The card shows the medical carrier as active, which is true, but that carrier does not adjudicate the therapy claim; the carve-out entity does, and it has its own payer ID, its own network, and its own timely filing clock. The fix has four moves: verify eligibility in a way that explicitly asks whether behavioral health is carved out, confirm the MBHO and its payer ID before the first appointment, route the claim to that entity from the first session, and track filing deadlines against the carve-out payer, not the card. We run those moves inside the systems you already use, so the coverage that exists actually pays. The table of contents maps the whole method; the moves after it are the detail.
Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) questionnaire gaps 📋
Front office and billing leads, this one’s for you.
When a Medicare patient has other coverage, like an employer group health plan, workers’ comp, no-fault auto, or liability insurance, Medicare may not be the primary payer. A gap in the MSP questions at registration can send the claim to the wrong payer.
Here’s what current CMS guidance says: 📊
📝 Ask before billing. Providers must determine whether Medicare is primary or secondary for each inpatient admission and outpatient encounter with a Medicare beneficiary, by asking about other insurance coverage.
🗂️ Use the model questions. CMS’s model MSP questionnaire is in Chapter 3, Section 20.2.1 of the Medicare Secondary Payer Manual. It lists the types of questions to ask at every admission, outpatient encounter, or start of care, with certain exceptions.
💳 Bill the right payer first. Under 42 CFR 489.20(g), providers agree to bill other primary payers before billing Medicare.
❌ What a gap looks like: A missed MSP or coordination of benefits question can lead to a CO-22 denial, and the claim has to be reworked.
The Staffingly solution: 💡
✅ MSP questionnaire handled at Medicare registration
Our team completes the MSP questionnaire at every Medicare registration, as part of our insurance verification service, so primary payer questions are answered before the claim goes out.
👉 Billing leads, how often do MSP issues show up as denials or rework at your practice?
Tell us in the comments. 👇
You Focus on Patient Care. We Handle the Admin. 💜
#MedicareSecondaryPayer #MSP #Medicare #PatientRegistration #EligibilityVerification #MedicalBilling #Staffingly
Why Does Credentialing With Behavioral Health Carve-Out Networks Take So Much Longer, and How Do Practices Bridge the Revenue Gap?
https://t.co/aADwawMNXU
Credentialing with behavioral health carve-out networks takes longer because the work is done sequentially instead of in parallel: practices file commercial applications first and start the carve-out panels afterward, CAQH data goes stale mid-process, and nobody runs a weekly follow-up cadence, so the clinician sits on payroll unable to bill the panels their patients actually carry. Carve-out networks also run their own separate credentialing committees on their own timelines, which stretch longer than commercial. It is rarely one slow payer; it is a sequential process with no owner. The fix has four moves: file the commercial and carve-out applications simultaneously so the clocks run together, keep CAQH attested and current so nothing stalls on stale data, run a weekly follow-up cadence on every payer until effective dates land, and bridge the revenue gap by knowing exactly which panels a clinician can bill and when. We run those moves inside the systems you already use, so a new hire becomes billable in the shortest window the payers allow. The table of contents below maps the whole method, and the five moves after it are the detail.
Charting and chart prep eating into evenings 🌙
Physicians, this one’s for you.
Clinic ends. The charting doesn’t. And MGMA’s 2026 data shows what that costs: 📊
📝 After-hours documentation: In an MGMA case study on a large ambient AI rollout, physician burnout was described as driven largely by overwhelming EHR documentation demands, with an unsustainable rise in after-hours charting, often called “pajama time.”
👋 Physicians are leaving: In an April 2026 MGMA Stat poll, 33% of medical groups reported a physician retiring or leaving in the past year due to burnout, up from 27% in September 2024. Among them, leaders pointed to heavier administrative work and disruptive EHR changes, among other pressures.
📈 It’s getting worse: In that same April 2026 poll, 49% of leaders said physician burnout was getting worse in their organizations.
📋 The burden is real: MGMA’s 2026 Regulatory Burden Report found that 77% of practices named regulatory burden a significant factor in physician burnout.
Every evening spent charting is an evening away from rest, family, and recovery.
Here’s how we help physicians get their evenings back: 💡
✅ Chart prep
Charts are ready before the visit, so you walk in with what you need.
✅ Real-time or post-visit scribing
Your visit is documented during the encounter or right after, whichever fits your workflow.
✅ Documentation support, with provider sign-off
We handle the documentation work, and you review and sign off, so you stay in control of every note.
👉 Physicians, how many evenings a week does charting follow you home?
Tell us in the comments. 👇
You Focus on Patient Care. We Handle the Admin. 💜
#PhysicianBurnout #ClinicalDocumentation #MedicalScribe #ChartPrep #PajamaTime #MedicalPractice #Staffingly
A patient financing leader stopped by our booth in San Antonio to talk partnership.
Patient payments are a bigger slice of practice revenue than they used to be. Collecting them kindly and on time is its own skill.
Here’s what MGMA’s 2026 data shows: 📊
💳 A bigger slice: In MGMA’s July 2026 poll, practice leaders listed growing patient balances alongside payer delays as pressures on their revenue cycle. And in August 2026, MGMA noted that higher deductibles can affect whether a patient keeps, postpones, or cancels a visit after learning the expected cost.
⏱️ On time: Practices collected about 72% of copayments at the time of service, but only about 27% of other patient-due balances (MGMA, 2024 data).
🤝 Kindly: MGMA recommends reviewing access and collections together. When staff rebook a visit, they can recheck coverage, update the cost estimate, and offer payment options (MGMA Stat, August 2026).
In other words, the kindest payment conversation is a clear one, with an accurate estimate and a real option for how to pay.
At Staffingly, our team verifies eligibility before the visit and handles patient billing follow-up, so those conversations start with the right information. 💜
Practices, how do you handle payment conversations with patients? 👇
If this sounds like your week, Book A Strategy Call with our team.
📍 Booth 902 | MGMA 2026 Annual Conference
#MGMA #MGMA2026 #PatientCollections #PatientFinancialExperience #RevenueCycleManagement #MedicalBilling #Staffingly
Why Do ABA Claims Deny Based on Place of Service, and Which Settings Does Medicaid Actually Pay For?
https://t.co/AdqSIYKee0
ABA claims deny on place of service because setting rules differ by state and payer, and schedulers book sessions by what is convenient for the family rather than by what the authorization and state Medicaid policy actually allow. Some state programs do not reimburse ABA delivered in a school at all, others require the location to be justified in the treatment plan before a session there can be billed, and if nobody checks the authorized setting before the session happens, the claim denies on a rule that was knowable in advance. It is rarely a clinical problem; it is a verification gap. The fix has four moves: verify each booked session's location against the authorization and state policy before it happens, map which settings each payer actually covers so scheduling stops guessing, document the location justification where the plan requires it, and catch a setting mismatch at booking instead of at the denial three months later. We run those moves inside the systems you already use, so the session you deliver is the session you can bill. The table of contents below maps the whole method, and the five moves after it are the detail.
How Do Therapists Protect Themselves From 90837 Audits and Extrapolated Recoupment Demands?
https://t.co/Qi48KA3DCh
Therapists protect themselves from 90837 audits and extrapolated recoupment by making every note independently prove 53 or more minutes of psychotherapy before the claim ever goes out, because auditors score a small sample and apply the failure rate to the whole claim history. The exposure is rarely that the sessions did not happen; it is that the note recorded a round number instead of real start and stop times, or reused cloned language that the reviewer flags as templated, or billed 90837 on so high a share of sessions that the pattern itself triggered the review. The fix has four moves: put start and stop times in every note so the clock is on the record, kill cloned content so each note stands alone, watch your own 90837 utilization before a payer does, and respond to a records request as a defense, not a formality. We run those moves inside the systems you already use, so the session you actually delivered is the session the note can prove. The table of contents maps the whole method; the moves after it are the detail.
Why Do Our Claims Deny Over NPI Fields When the Provider Is Fully Credentialed?
https://t.co/0MCuJPrxVT
Claims deny over NPI fields on a fully credentialed provider because the payer contract ties reimbursement to a specific identifier combination, and the claim put the wrong one in the wrong box. Group practices carry two kinds of identifier: a Type 2 group NPI for the organization and a Type 1 individual NPI for each provider, and the payer expects the group NPI as the billing provider and the individual NPI as the rendering provider. When those get swapped, left blank, or billed under the wrong tax ID, the claim denies or pays out-of-network even though every provider is credentialed.
The fix has four moves: map every NPI and TIN to how each payer contract expects them, place the billing and rendering identifiers correctly on the claim, add scrubber rules that catch the swap before submission, and reconcile the billing system against the enrollment record so the two never drift apart. We run those moves inside the systems you already use. The table of contents below maps the whole method, and the moves after it are the detail.
Still thinking about the people we met at MGMA’s 100th conference. Today: a team member from a medical group in Georgia.
MGMA’s theme this year was “From Here Forward.” A good question for any practice.
Where is your practice headed in 2027? 👇
Here’s what’s already set for 2027, as of this week: 📊
📉 Medicare payments: CMS released its final 2027 Physician Fee Schedule on November 4, 2026. The conversion factor drops 2.31% for most clinicians ($33.40 to $32.63) and 1.83% for qualifying APM participants ($33.57 to $32.95), starting January 1, 2027.
🩺 Office visits: In the same final rule, CMS replaced the office and outpatient E/M complexity add-on code with a modifier that increases payment for the base E/M code by 16%.
📋 Prior authorization: Under CMS-0057-F, impacted payers must generally have a Prior Authorization API in place by January 1, 2027.
⚙️ Where practices are heading: In MGMA’s newest poll, 63% of medical group leaders said their revenue cycle operations are leaning toward more automation (MGMA Stat, October 2026).
So what does that mean for 2027? 💡
Lower Medicare rates mean every claim, every authorization, and every staff hour matters more. Getting paid correctly, and on time, becomes even more important.
Our answer: automate the repetitive work, like eligibility checks and claim status, and pair it with trained people for the work that needs judgment, like prior authorizations, payer calls, and coding.
That’s how Staffingly helps practices move “From Here Forward.” 💜
What’s your plan for 2027? Tell us in the comments.
📍 Booth 902 | MGMA 2026 Annual Conference
#MGMA #MGMA2026 #FromHereForward #MedicarePFS #RevenueCycleManagement #PracticeManagement #Staffingly
Inbox backlog: portal messages, refill requests, lab results, faxes 📥
Physicians and nurses, this one’s for you.
Here’s what MGMA’s data shows about the inbox: 📊
💬 Portal messages are rising. 70% of medical groups reported higher patient portal message volume in 2024, 29% said it stayed the same, and only 1% saw a decrease (MGMA Stat, January 2025).
📠 Faxes and pharmacy messages still need people. In a 2026 MGMA Stat poll on digital fax, leaders said inbound fax management still depends heavily on human review, especially for referrals, records, pharmacy messages, and prior authorizations.
🩺 Who handles the inbox: MGMA notes that RNs can triage messages and escalate complex issues to providers, and clinical pharmacists can handle medication-related questions. And in its August 2026 poll on APP roles, MGMA suggested tracking how much work is taken out of the physician inbox.
Every message, refill, result, and fax needs someone to move it forward.
Here’s how we help clear the backlog: 💡
✅ Inbox triage
Messages are sorted and routed to the right person, so urgent items rise to the top.
✅ Refill processing
Refill requests are prepared according to your practice’s protocols, for clinical review and approval.
✅ Lab result release
Results are handled according to your practice’s protocols and your clinicians’ direction.
✅ Fax handling
Incoming faxes are sorted, indexed, and routed to the right chart or workflow.
👉 Physicians and nurses, which part of the inbox takes the most time in your day?
Tell us in the comments. 👇
You Focus on Patient Care. We Handle the Admin. 💜
#InboxManagement #PatientPortal #ClinicalWorkflow #PhysicianBurnout #Nursing #MedicalPractice #Staffingly
Referrals that get lost or stall 🔄
Physicians and referral coordinators, this one’s for you.
A referral can be complete the moment it’s sent. But that doesn’t mean the patient ever gets seen.
Here’s what MGMA’s data shows: 📊
💻 Most practices have tools, but gaps remain. In a February 2025 MGMA Stat poll of 309 medical groups, 76% said they manage referrals through their EHR (66%) or dedicated referral software (10%), while 21% still track them manually. Leaders still pointed to data bottlenecks, communication gaps, and scheduling difficulties.
📠 Paper still slows things down. Some practices said they still track referrals manually because of faxed paper referrals or EHR limitations.
📂 Where referrals get lost: In a 2026 MGMA Stat poll on digital fax, leaders said inbound fax management still depends heavily on human review, especially for referrals. Practices that routed faxes directly into routing, indexing, and follow-up workflows reported faster turnaround on referrals and fewer documents disappearing between receipt and action.
Here’s how we help at each step: 💡
✅ Referral routing
Incoming referrals get to the right place, so they don’t sit in a queue.
✅ Referral scheduling
Patients get contacted and booked, so the referral turns into a visit.
✅ Referral tracking
Referrals are followed until they’re scheduled, so stalled ones get caught.
👉 Referral coordinators, where do your referrals stall most: before the patient is contacted, or after?
Tell us in the comments. 👇
You Focus on Patient Care. We Handle the Admin. 💜
#Referrals #ReferralManagement #PatientAccess #CareCoordination #MedicalPractice #PracticeManagement #Staffingly
Still thinking about the people we met at MGMA’s 100th conference. Today: a team member from an OB/GYN practice in Washington.
Every practice we met had its own story. Different specialty, different payer mix, same pressure on staff time.
What’s the one thing slowing your team down this month? 👇
Here’s what MGMA’s latest data shows: 📊
🏥 Different payer mix, same payer headaches: Where days in A/R increased, leaders pointed to payer behavior, including slower payment, initial denials, downcoding, medical records requests, and prepayment audits (MGMA Stat, July 2026).
⏱️ Same pressure on staff time: 45% of practice leaders said eligibility and prior authorization were their staff’s most time-consuming phone tasks, and 61% had staff logging into seven or more payer portals every week (MGMA Stat, March 2026).
⚙️ How practices are responding: In MGMA’s newest poll, 63% of medical group leaders said their revenue cycle operations are leaning toward more automation in 2026 (MGMA Stat, October 20, 2026). Earlier this year, leaders listed eligibility checks, claim status, denials workflows, and prior authorization workflows among the work they planned to automate (MGMA Stat, January 2026).
Whatever your specialty or payer mix, the work that slows teams down looks remarkably similar.
At Staffingly, our team handles eligibility verification, prior authorizations, claim follow-up, and denial work, with automation supporting the routine tasks, so your staff can focus on patients. 💜
📍 Booth 902 | MGMA 2026 Annual Conference
#MGMA #MGMA2026 #OBGYN #WomensHealth #RevenueCycleManagement #PriorAuthorization #Staffingly
Who Is Supposed to Collect, Score, and Enter Measurement-Based Care Data When Clinicians Are Already at Capacity?
Measurement-based care data entry has no owner because the mandate added per-session administrative work without assigning anyone to do it, and most behavioral health EHRs cannot capture, score, and trend the scales natively, so results live on paper or in PDFs and never make it to the point of care. Clinicians end up collecting, scoring, and entering outcome measures in the last minutes of a visit, and adherence collapses because that time does not exist. The fix has four moves: send the scales to patients before the session so scoring is already done when they walk in, put a dedicated team member on the scoring and data entry so the clinician never touches it, trend the results so a worsening score is visible at the next visit instead of buried in a PDF, and flag deterioration for clinician review the moment it shows. We run those moves inside the EHR you already use, so the measure guides care instead of stealing the last ten minutes of it. The table of contents below maps the whole method, and the five moves after it are the detail.
https://t.co/uE898JjJ6O
Which SNF Ambulance Transports Does the Facility Pay Versus Medicare?
Which SNF transports the facility pays versus Medicare comes down to the resident's Part A status, whether the trip is emergency or non-emergency, and the origin and destination of the run. During a covered Part A stay, most non-emergency transports, including routine trips to a physician appointment or between two SNFs, fall under SNF consolidated billing, so the facility pays and Medicare will deny the claim. Emergency transports and specific carve-outs like dialysis roundtrips, transport to the hospital for intensive outpatient services, and the trips into and out of the stay stay Medicare-billable. The fix has four moves: determine the payer at dispatch while the trip type is still knowable, get a signed SNF agreement that names your rates and payment terms before you run for that facility, invoice the facility cleanly for the runs that are theirs, and work the denials that slip through to the right payer before they age out. We run those moves inside the systems you already use, so runs land on the payer that actually owes for them. The table of contents maps the whole method; the moves after it are the detail.
https://t.co/9a6uRU6E5I
No-shows and empty appointment slots 📅
Practice owners and schedulers, this one’s for you.
Here’s the latest from MGMA (August 2026): 📊
📉 No-shows: 32% of medical groups reported higher no-show rates so far in 2026 compared with 2025. That’s up 5 percentage points from the same poll a year earlier. Only 10% reported lower rates.
🕳️ Empty slots: MGMA’s 2025 Financials and Operations data report (2024 data) showed a 19.95% appointment cancellation rate, and only 27.40% of canceled visits were rescheduled within 30 days.
🔎 Why patients miss: Leaders pointed to patient costs, transportation, work conflicts, and weather. MGMA also noted that adding more reminders may not help if forgetting isn’t the real reason.
So the fix isn’t just reminders. It’s reminders plus a plan to refill and rebook open slots.
Here’s how we help with both: 💡
To prevent no-shows:
✅ Reminder calls and texts, so patients have a clear, timely heads-up before their visit
To fill empty slots:
✅ Recall lists, so patients who are due for follow-up get called back in
✅ Waitlist management, so an open slot can go to a patient who’s waiting. MGMA itself suggests using waitlists to pull patients into earlier openings.
👉 Schedulers, when a patient cancels, how often does that slot get refilled?
Tell us in the comments. 👇
You Focus on Patient Care. We Handle the Admin. 💜
#NoShows #PatientScheduling #PatientAccess #PracticeManagement #MedicalPractice #FrontOffice #Staffingly