A bi-weekly newsletter from your physician organization to keep you informed of today's healthcare news

The Physician Alliance continues to support member practices with connecting patients to non-medical health needs. Addressing these social determinants of health needs helps improve the health and well-being of patients.

Examples of support provided:

• Medical equipment

• Food resources

• Transportation

• Employment assistance

• Clothing, home supplies, diapers, etc.

These services are complimentary to practices participating in BCBSM’s Physician Group Incentive Program (PGIP) through TPA. Members can submit a request for community health resource support through the secure member portal. Log in at tpaportal.org and click on the ‘SDOH referral’ link. Complete the form and one of TPA’s community health workers will contact the patient and follow up with the practice.

Resources to support community health outreach

TPA members also have access to a variety of materials to help promote these services to patients and practice staff. These are available free to members via the portal.

Resources for patient education:

• Flyers to promote non-medical community health services to patients (with phone number to call TPA’s community health worker). These flyers are also available with tear-off phone number tabs.
• Social media graphics promoting non-medical community health services for practices to utilize on their websites, patient portal, etc.

Practice staff resources supporting SDOH include:

• Flyer that informs staff of available patient support TPA’s community health worker can assist with.
• Brief video that shows how to submit a community health assistance referral form.
• Social determinants of health Z codes tip sheet.

Store shelves are full of notebooks, pencils and backpacks, which means the first day of school is quickly approaching. Are your patients ready? Not just with school supplies but also important vaccines.

Providers play a critical role in ensuring patients receive routine childhood vaccines. The Michigan Department of Health & Human Services (MDHHS) launched a campaign to remind parents and guardians of the importance of vaccinating school-age children. Consider outreach through phone calls, portal messages, postcards, social media posts, and flyers in the practice waiting room and exam rooms.

MDHHS created a variety of helpful materials to promote school vaccinations:

• Resource Center - printable materials, social media content, and other content (in multiple languages)
• Colorful, printable flyer with chart of required school vaccines

Most physicians can describe their compensation plan in general terms, but far fewer can explain exactly how the number on the paycheck is produced. In physician-owned practices, the question cuts twice - owners both set the plan and are paid by it.

Provider compensation is a paradox. It is highly regulated, formulaic and data-driven - and at the same time, it is someone's paycheck. Pay is personal. A compensation plan is one of the clearest statements a practice or healthcare organization makes about what work it values, what risk it will share, and how it expects physicians to practice. And the assumptions behind many plans have quietly shifted.

Something unusual happened in 2025. Median physician compensation continued to rise even as work RVUs fell in 16 of 23 common specialties, and total encounters declined in all 23, according to the MGMA 2026 Provider Compensation and Productivity Data Report. For years, production and pay moved together. When they separate, a plan built for yesterday’s production environment can keep calculating correctly while rewarding the wrong things.

The 2026 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule compounds this. CMS revalued roughly 7,700 non-time-based codes, so the same pay is now divided by fewer wRVUs. Compensation-per-wRVU ratios rise mechanically, even though nothing about the physician’s pay changed - which means benchmarks drawn from a revaluation year need to be read carefully before anyone calls a rate “at market.”

The good news is these are challenges with solutions. Across Michigan and nationally, hybrid models - a stable base plus incentives for productivity, quality, access, call and supervision - have become the practical answer for most groups. Physicians and practice leaders who understand which benchmarks were used, how conversion factors were set, and how expenses are assigned are far better equipped to design, implement, and advocate for fair, transparent and sustainable compensation. 

Read the full article.

Source: Medical Group Management Association, one of TPA's Affiliate Partners, helps practices develop and manage provider compensation, revenue cycle optimization and more. To learn about TPA member discounts and schedule a free consultation, contact Jessica Minesinger, FACMPE, BBCC at JMinesinger@MGMA.com, (937) 210-9888.

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