Low pay, high workloads and labor shortages are fueling an epidemic of burnout among American physicians and could spell disaster for health care, according to a new study.
About 81% of doctors say they are overworked 2024 Physician Compensation Report released today from Proximityonline platform for healthcare professionals, available exclusively Luck. In 2023, researchers surveyed 33,000 full-time U.S. physicians and used data from thousands of other recent surveys. Another 88% say the current physician shortage is causing their practices to suffer, and 86% say they are concerned about the ability of the American health care system to care for an aging population.
Morale is so low that about 30% of doctors are considering early retirement – a potential disaster for a country where 70% of the people already feel overwhelmed by the health care system. let them down.
“We find ourselves in a position where we are often very exhausted,” says Dr. Amit Phull, Doximity’s chief medical officer and emergency medicine physician. Luck. “I think that because [pandemic] The dust will settle, and people who may have initially thought, “This is where I need to be, this is why I trained,” will have to do a lot of rethinking. They are now reconsidering careers in medicine in terms of cost and balance.”
More work for less pay
Doctors have always had hard work, be it long hours, emotionally draining conversations., or a dizzying amount of responsibility.
But patients today are sicker than they were just a few decades ago, and often suffer from multiple comorbidities such as arthritis, diabetes and asthma. “The specter of caring for this aging and sicker population is much more daunting,” Full says.
Physicians also face a heavy administrative burden, which is one of the most significant drains on their time and energy, according to the report. For every hour of direct patient care, doctors spend about two hours on paperwork during the day and another one to two hours at night. About 75% of physicians surveyed said that reducing administrative workload could significantly improve feelings of overwork and burnout.
“This imbalance between what we went to school for, what we trained for, and what we actually, actually do? I think the improvements could be quite dramatic,” says Full.
And while physician salaries are generally increasing, revenue numbers don’t tell the whole story. According to the report, average physician salaries grew 6% in 2023, with physicians in major metropolitan areas such as San Jose, California, and St. Louis, Missouri earning about $450,000. But Medicare physician payments have fallen 26% since 2001, according to the report, and many regions are not properly adjusting physician salaries after years of sky-high inflation. Many doctors also carry the burden of medical school debt: according to Education Data Initiative.
This means that while some doctors are taking home big paychecks, adjusted compensation has actually declined for many—a bitter pill to swallow, especially considering that many Americans still believe that all doctors are rich.
Of course, compared to the average income of the US workforce, doctors still earn a good salary. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average salary for full-time workers in the United States is just over $59,000. income statementand the average salary for doctors in metropolitan areas is about $400,000. But according to Full, the gap between how people still think about doctors’ salaries and how demanding and unstable the job has actually become is one factor. leading to feelings of burnout and disappointment.
“As a physician in today’s health care system, I see a dissonance between reality and other people’s perceptions,” he says.
The gender pay gap that plagues the American workforce as a whole is also particularly pronounced among this group of professionals. It fell slightly to 23% in 2023 from 26% in 2022, but remains significant, according to the report. Female doctors earn on average nearly $102,000 less than their male counterparts. Over the course of their careers, Doximity estimates that male doctors earn more than $2 million more than women in the same field.
“I couldn’t believe she was so tall,” said Dr. Tina Chu. Luck. As a San Diego pediatrician, Chu works in one of the lowest-paid areas of medicine in one of the lowest-paid regions in the country.
“Reading the report was definitely a little disappointing,” she adds. “But it also brought awareness and transparency, because without it, I wouldn’t know where I stand in knowing my potential value and being able to protect myself in the future.”
The future of medical practice
As the U.S. population ages, so do doctors.
Even before questions about burnout leading to early retirement, the aging physician population posed a threat to the current health care system. The Doximity report confirms previous conclusions published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) The organization projects that the United States will face a physician shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036.
Finding his replacement is difficult, Full said. To begin with, new doctors are not joining the workforce quickly enough. And the creation of new positions that could help alleviate physician shortages, including nurse practitioners and physician assistants, also has not kept pace with cascading workforce shortages.
So are we all doomed? Not necessarily, says Full, who despite all these challenges remains optimistic about the future of U.S. health care. Many doctors, for example, hope that the Federal Trade Commission’s recent ban on non-compete clauses may be helpful.
“This could lead to a huge change in the space where doctors like me have a lot more mobility. [who] are licensed in several states,” he says. “My ability to potentially practice in many more geographic areas could expand exponentially, which would ideally alleviate some of this problem of physician workforce shortages.”
Survey respondents had other ideas for what would help ease the burden: increasing education funding to train more doctors, implementing loan forgiveness programs to encourage work in underserved areas, expanding virtual visit capabilities to improve patient access to care, and using tools artificial intelligence. to assist with administrative tasks.
“The doctors surveyed said they could save 12 to 13 hours a week if they had well-developed artificial intelligence tools. [for] documentation, helping with notes, helping with appeal letters,” says Phil. “So I think this could be a huge improvement.”