Innovation, value on agenda as MGMA discusses medical practice evolution

As healthcare technology and care-coordination demands continue to weigh on independent physicians, medical group leaders will gather in Nashville this week to envision the medical practice of the future.

This year's annual meeting of the Medical Group Management Association will focus heavily on innovation, particularly as the industry transitions to value-based payment models, said Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright, the group's president and CEO.

“I think what is concrete now is that what we're doing is not working,” she said. “We're all looking for ways to accomplish the goals of the Triple Aim” of a better patient experience, improved population health and lower per capita cost.

Dr. Atul Gawande, author of The Checklist Manifesto, which focuses on process improvement as a way to achieve better outcomes, is among this year's keynote speakers.

The meeting comes as health systems continue to buy up independent physician practices at a rapid pace. Because the healthcare landscape has changed, the MGMA has added an educational track focused on integrated care, which Fischer-Wright described as the true underlying goal of consolidation. More hospital and physician executives also have been attending the annual meeting in recent years, she noted.

The group expects attendance this year to top 3,000, reversing the declining attendance it saw between 2013 and 2014.

“We're moving into an era where hospitals are the cost centers and medical groups are the revenue centers,” Fischer-Wright said. “I think this conference is marking our place as the leader in that transition.”