Physician burnout is on the decline but doctors aren't cheering

After peaking during the COVID-19 pandemic, physician burnout has dipped under 50 percent for the first time in four years, but doctors say working conditions in the medical field remain far from ideal. 

A survey published by the American Medical Association (AMA) this month found that 48.2 percent of physicians in 2023 experienced at least one symptom of burnout, down nearly 15 percent from when this metric peaked in 2021. 

Reported job satisfaction rose from 68 percent to 72.1 percent between 2022 and 2023, while job stress dropped in the same time frame, going from 55.6 percent to 50.7 percent. 

“It's good news and it's bad news,” Steven Furr, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, told The Hill. “It's good news that the numbers have gone down but still they're higher than what we'd like them to be.” 

The AMA has tracked physician burnout rates since 2011 along with the Mayo Clinic and Stanford Medicine. Prior to the pandemic, burnout rates ranged from 43.9 percent in 2017 to 54.4 percent in 2014. 

Among physicians, burnout is defined as a long-term stress reaction that manifests through different symptoms like emotional exhaustion; a lack of empathy or a feeling of negativity towards patients; or a decreased sense of personal achievement. 

According to Furr, the reason rates of burnout may be dropping is “multifactorial.” 

“I think the biggest thing is just the awareness in the workplace that that is an issue,” said Furr. “I think there's been some stabilization in the workforce, particularly around those who work around physicians, the nurses and the other people they work with. For a while there was a lot of turnover there.” 

Furr noted that reducing stress in the medical field is also crucial due to the aging population of doctors. 

“I think, hopefully, we're not losing more physicians and that does help. Of course, there are stresses going on in our whole health care system, our average age of our average physician’s over 55 years of age. So as more of those retire, you're gonna need more physicians to take their place.” 

Isaac Opole, physician and president of the American College of Physicians, observed that having “barely cracked the 50 percent margin” after 4 years of exceeding it is not exactly a promising sign for those in his field. 

“You get burned in a fire, but now the fire is cooler from 500 degrees to 400 degrees. Are you any better?” said Opole, noting the factors that contributed to physician burnout before the pandemic still exist today, even if they’re no longer exacerbated by the global outbreak. 

Administrative burdens like handling electronic health records (EHR) and managing proper payment have been cited by physicians and government agencies as a significant contributor to physician burnout. 

Research funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that “the hope that electronic health records (EHRs) in the workplace would reduce stress has not been realized; in fact, implementation of an EHR can contribute to burnout.” 

Opole cited these administrative tasks as a “huge piece” of why physicians report feeling burned out. 

“There is an old saying attributed to CMS or Medicare that says that if it's not documented, it hasn't happened,” said Opole.  

“So as a physician, the very first thing is that you must sit at a typewriter and type in order to get paid. Even if you have just finished brain surgery or you've just transplanted a heart, at the end of it, in order to get paid, you must be a typist.” 

Furr said having to deal with EHRs “keeps us away from doing the things that we get really joy from.” 

Both physicians who spoke with The Hill said cutting down on the red tape and administrative work in practicing medicine would go a long way in combating physician burnout. 

Furr voiced his support for the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act, a bipartisan bill that aims to streamline prior authorization requirements under Medicare Advantage plans.

He noted that among physicians, “more than 90 percent say this is one of their biggest time wasters and consumes a lot of their time and causes a lot of stress for them. And not only that, it causes stress for our patients because often they're not able to get their medicines on time or get the medicines that they need.” 

A bipartisan, bicameral group of lawmakers reintroduced the Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care Act last month. 

Outside of legislation, Opole thinks AI should be embraced in the field. 

“If you look at the history of electronic health records, most of the electronic health record systems grew out of administrative software that was supposed to streamline back operations for health systems, that's billing and pharmacy and nurse records and all of that,” Opole said. “And many of them, when the HITECH bill was passed, simply stuck on an interface there for physicians to start documenting and entering orders. 

“And so that really did not serve the needs of a practicing clinician. AI can now be integrated into these systems, for example, to take away the documentation requirement. We now have AI systems that can record a clinical encounter and produce the data that you know, for example, payers would need,” he added. 
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009 incentivized the use of EHRs with federal subsidies. But as Fortune reported 10 years after the bill’s passage, the implementation was fraught and the vision that hospitals across the country would soon have EHR systems that were mutually communicative has not come to fruition.