For four years now, medical practice professionals have responded to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) about their biggest daily professional challenges, as well as their struggles to adapt their professions and practices to a time of rapid change, legislative pressure and fiscal uncertainty. According to the MGMA 2011 “Medical Practice Today: What Members Have to Say” research, the top five challenges of running a group practice are: 1. Preparing for reimbursement models that place a greater share of financial risk on the practice 2. Participating in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ EHR Meaningful Use incentive program 3. Dealing with rising operating costs 4. Selecting and implementing a new EHR system 5. Implementing and/or optimizing an accountable care organization MGMA observed that the issues members deemed to be even more challenging this year than last were associated with new operational elements and information technology (IT) adoption. If you’re feeling the same about information technology then contact Harmony Healthcare IT. We’ll partner with your practice to serve as your virtual IT department. Leverage our expertise and put us to work for you. MGMA invited members Jan. 7-21 via e-mail to participate in a Web-based questionnaire about their practices. Members rated 44 issues and identified which challenges were most applicable to their daily work. For each issue, respondents rated the degree of challenge on a five-point scale: 1 = no challenge, 2 = low challenge, 3 = moderate challenge, 4 = considerable challenge and 5 = extreme challenge. MGMA received responses from 1,190 individuals.