The median family medicine practice has a no-show rate of 4.7% and cancels 19.0% of booked appointments, according to MGMA DataDive's 2025 Financials and Operations survey (2024 data). Those two numbers set the baseline for patient access, and the rest of the front-end medians sit close to them.
Forvis Mazars presented the full set at the Kansas MGMA Annual Conference in April 2026. All medians below are for family medicine practices unless noted. They give a practice manager a starting line to compare against, not a target for every specialty.
What are the median patient access numbers?
MGMA DataDive's 2025 Financials and Operations survey (2024 data) reports three scheduling medians for family medicine. The no-show rate is 4.7%. The appointment cancellation rate is 19.0%. Same-day appointments make up 10.0% of the schedule.
Applied to 1,000 booked appointments, the medians mean about 47 no-shows and 190 cancellations. About 100 of the 1,000 visits would be booked the same day.
Wait times come from a different MGMA file, the 2024 Practice Operations survey (2023 data). The median patient spends 17.7 minutes in the waiting room and then another 33.6 minutes waiting in the exam room. That is 51.3 minutes before the clinician arrives, a sum of the two medians and not a figure MGMA reports on its own.
The two surveys cover different years, so compare them with care. A practice that measures only the waiting room will see 17.7 minutes as the number to beat and miss the longer wait that follows.
How much do practices collect at the front desk?
Collections at the time of service show how well the front desk works. In MGMA DataDive's 2025 survey (2024 data), the median family medicine practice collects 74.0% of copays at the time of service. For patient balances due, the median drops to 60.0%.
Eligibility checks come before collection. The MGMA 2024 Practice Operations survey (2023 data) puts the median insurance verification rate at 87.0%. The same survey puts the median clean claim rate at 85.0%, so 15.0% of claims need correction before or after the first submission.
The other 40.0% of patient balances due, and 26.0% of copays, are not collected at the visit. Those amounts move to the billing office and the statement cycle.
Forvis Mazars also lists an annual wellness visit completion rate of 24.0%. That figure comes from the firm's own industry experience, not from MGMA, so treat it as a rough marker.
| Patient access KPI | Median, family medicine | Source and data year |
|---|---|---|
| No-show rate | 4.7% | MGMA DataDive 2025, 2024 data |
| Appointment cancellation rate | 19.0% | MGMA DataDive 2025, 2024 data |
| Same-day appointments | 10.0% | MGMA DataDive 2025, 2024 data |
| Minutes in waiting room | 17.7 | MGMA DataDive 2024, 2023 data |
| Minutes waiting in exam room | 33.6 | MGMA DataDive 2024, 2023 data |
| Copays collected at time of service | 74.0% | MGMA DataDive 2025, 2024 data |
| Patient balances collected at time of service | 60.0% | MGMA DataDive 2025, 2024 data |
| Insurance verification rate | 87.0% | MGMA DataDive 2024, 2023 data |
| Clean claim rate | 85.0% | MGMA DataDive 2024, 2023 data |
Source: Forvis Mazars, Kansas MGMA Annual Conference, April 2026, citing MGMA DataDive.
What do the billing medians look like?
The billing medians come from the same deck and the 2025 Financials and Operations survey (2024 data). Net days in accounts receivable are 69.8. Of the receivable balance, 27.9% is older than 90 days and 22.9% is older than 120 days.
The gap between 27.9% and 22.9% is 5.0 points. That share of the balance sits in the 91 to 120 day window, where follow-up can still change the outcome.
The collection percentages are 49.1% gross and 97.1% net. The gross figure is low because it compares payments with full charges. The net figure compares payments with what the contracts allow. Claims denied on first submission run at a median of 7.1%.
The 7.1% first-submission denial rate sits well below the 15.0% of claims that are not clean. A claim can need correction and still pay on the first pass.
Where do denials start?
Forvis Mazars cites a 2024 Change Healthcare study that sorts denial causes by where in the process they begin. Front-end causes account for 41.0% of denials. Back-end causes account for 34.0%, mid-cycle causes for 17.0%, and other causes for 8.0%.
Inside the front-end group, registration and eligibility errors make up 22.0% of all denials. Authorization and pre-certification add 13.0%, and medical necessity adds 6.0%. In the back-end group, missing or invalid claim data is 16.0% and missing medical documentation is 14.0%.
These shares sit next to the access table. The median verification rate is 87.0%, which leaves 13.0% of checks undone, and registration and eligibility is the largest single denial cause at 22.0%.
What does one denied claim cost?
Forvis Mazars gives a worked example for a rural health clinic that is paid a flat all-inclusive rate of $152 per visit. Resubmitting a denied claim once costs $75 in staff time and supplies. A second denial raises the resubmission cost to $150.
The example then scales to 1,000 claims a month. If 170 of them, or 17.0%, are denied once, resubmission costs $12,750 a month. If those same 170 are denied twice, the cost is $25,500 a month, or $306,000 a year.
The 17.0% denial rate in the example is far above the 7.1% family medicine median for first-submission denials. The per-claim costs of $75 and $150 carry to any practice. The 17.0% rate applies only to the example.
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