How Often Do Clinicians Use EHR Workarounds? 75% (2026)

In MGMA's July 21, 2026 Stat poll, 75% of medical groups said clinicians use workarounds for EHR or practice management system problems, 43% frequently and 32% sometimes. Only 3% said clinicians never use them. The poll drew 216 applicable responses.

What the 2026 poll found

MGMA asked how often clinicians in the respondent's group use workarounds for EHR or practice management (PM) system issues. NextGenHealthcare sponsored the poll. MGMA published the write-up on July 23, 2026, and NextGenHealthcare co-hosted a free 60-minute webinar on broken workflows on July 28, 2026. Weigh the sponsorship when you read the framing.

Answer	Share of 216 responses
Frequently	43%
Sometimes	32%
Rarely needed	16%
Never	3%
Unsure	6%

Source: MGMA Stat poll, July 21, 2026, 216 applicable responses.

Adding the first two rows gives the 75% figure MGMA reports. Adding the third row gives 91% of groups that see at least occasional workaround use. The 9% left over is the 3% who say never and the 6% who are unsure.

How to read the split

For every group that says clinicians never use workarounds, 25 say clinicians use them frequently or sometimes (75% against 3%). A workaround is a step outside the system's designed path. Staff might keep a paper log, a spreadsheet, or a sticky note to finish a task the software does not handle.

MGMA lists six places where PM workarounds show up: scheduling, registration, eligibility checks, charge capture, claims follow-up, and patient collections. Each of those six steps sits on the path between a patient visit and a payment. A manual patch at any one of them adds a step that a report cannot see.

The poll measures what group leaders report. It does not count workarounds per clinician or hours lost. A group that answers "frequently" could have one workaround or many. That gap is why a practice needs its own count, covered at the end of this post.

Technology priorities in 2023 and 2025

MGMA has polled leaders twice on their top technology priority. In a November 7, 2023 poll of 424 applicable responses, EHR usability led at 35%. In a January 14, 2025 poll of 293 applicable responses, AI tools led at 32% and EHR usability held 30%.

Priority	Nov. 2023 (424 responses)	Jan. 2025 (293 responses)
EHR usability	35%	30%
AI tools	13%	32%
Patient communications and access (2023) or patient outreach technology (2025)	26%	13%
RCM and billing systems	21%	17%
Other	6%	8%

Source: MGMA Stat polls published November 8, 2023 and January 15, 2025. MGMA notes the 2023 shares do not total 100% because of rounding. The patient communication category changed its name between polls, so compare those two cells with care.

EHR usability lost 5 points between the polls. AI tools gained 19 points. Even after that drop, 30% of the 293 leaders in 2025 still named EHR usability first, ahead of billing systems at 17%.

The 2023 write-up gives context for the AI numbers. Only one in 10 medical groups used AI tools regularly in a March 28, 2023 MGMA poll, and 21% had added or expanded AI tools in a September 5, 2023 poll. By January 2025, 32% of leaders ranked AI first. Leaders moved attention to AI faster than the underlying EHR problems moved down the list, since 30% still put usability first.

What research says about why workarounds form

MGMA's article cites a 2022 scoping review of 62 studies by Blijleven, Hoxha, and Jaspers in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. The authors found that users develop workarounds when system-designed workflows conflict with the work performed in practice. They point to possible effects on patient safety, care quality, and efficiency.

MGMA also cites a 2025 scoping review by Olakotan and colleagues in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. That review links poorly designed interfaces to task switching, prolonged navigation, fragmented information, duplicate documentation, and the use of outside tools. Those five effects match the habits the 2026 poll tries to capture.

For the inbox, MGMA points to a July 23, 2024 AMA STEPS Forward module. It describes five moves: measure the current state, remove low-value messages, automate routine tasks, delegate work under clear protocols, and create team coverage.

What a practice can count

A leader who answers "frequently" in a poll has an impression. A practice manager can turn it into numbers in one pass. Two counts do most of the work:

The number of manual steps staff add after each of the six PM areas MGMA lists, from scheduling through patient collections.
The minutes each of those steps takes per week, multiplied by the hourly cost of the staff member who does it.

The 2023 MGMA poll also reports what leaders want fixed. Its top three requested EHR improvements were fewer clicks and a friendlier interface, integration with other systems, and better reporting and data access. The same article names improved interoperability with other systems, locations, and partners as the most common goal for the next 6 to 12 months.

Once the two counts exist, rank the steps by weekly cost and repeat the count each quarter. A step that costs 30 minutes a week for one person is a different problem from a step that costs 30 minutes a week for ten people, and only a count shows which one a practice has.

That reporting request ties back to the 2026 poll. A workaround that lives in a spreadsheet will not appear in the EHR's own reports, and 91% of groups in the poll see at least some of that behavior.

Sources

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