Tim Kelly serves as the managing director of TPG’s Group Physician Advisory Services (GPAS) division. In addition to leading TPG’s highly specialized team of healthcare experts, he enjoys helping his clients solve complex challenges and implement new strategies to achieve their goals. BenchmarkMD gives medical groups clarity on those strategies and their goals.
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In 2023, Tim and his GPAS team collaborated with the American Medical Group Association (AMGA) on a first-of-its-kind initiative – a medical group benefits benchmarking survey dedicated exclusively to multi-specialty medical groups. This tool targets, reviews, and depicts gaps in healthcare total rewards programs using best-in-class data collection and analysis.
The resulting data now populates their new tool, BenchmarkMD. Medical groups that participate in the program finally have the targeted data needed to drive key benefits decisions and attract and retain talent. Participants gain new insight into several different areas, such as where their clinician benefits programs are strong and where they can be elevated, and how their programs compare to similar organizations.
We talked with Tim to discuss how the initiative is going, a year (and counting) into its unveiling.
What are some of the success stories you’ve had with BenchmarkMD participants?
It’s been extremely well-received by our medical group partners. There is a huge need for benefits benchmarking data and a quantitative assessment of competitiveness, so the data provided by BenchmarkMD has been invaluable. The Competitiveness Score medical groups receive makes it easy for them to see how they stack up against their competitors. We’ve met with 18 medical groups and had impactful discussions about how to leverage benefits to improve the clinician experience and to attract and retain talent.
Have there been any surprises in the data that’s accumulating?
Yes! It’s been surprising how little the medical groups we’ve worked with are leveraging voluntary benefits to help customize their packages to the individual. This strategy is currently being deployed by 27% of medical groups, but half of the medical groups surveyed indicated they will deploy this strategy in the next one to two years. This can really help an employer meet their employees where they are and support the five generations that make up the workforce today. We will see movement in this space.
What goals do you have for the future of BenchmarkMD?
We plan to increase the number of participants and entities on which we have data. We are looking to fill any perceived holes in the data set. And we’ll continue to fine-tune our Competitiveness Score as more organizations participate.
We’d like to see current clients complete the survey every couple of years – in fact, we’re working on a 2025 iteration now. Then we can scour the results from first and second surveys for trends. Highlighting these trends will help medical groups stay ahead of the curve of the ever-changing benefits landscape and how benefits are being leveraged to attract and retain clinician talent.
It’s been a big year for GPAS. Where do you see your team here at TPG headed in the coming years?
We have realized tremendous growth in the last couple years, and we plan to continue that growth. So we’ll welcome additional healthcare team members to continue our important work to be known as the experts in the medical group benefits space and to do our part to improve the clinician experience and effect the quadruple aim.
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If you’re interested in connecting with Tim regarding BenchmarkMD, contact him at tkelly@tpgrp.com.
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