Physician burnout common in Florida, survey finds
As many as 80 percent of Florida physicians have experienced burnout at some point in their careers, according to a recent survey by the national nonprofit Physicians Foundation.
Although slightly higher than the national average, the startling statistic isn’t unique to Florida. Burnout is something that three in four U.S. physicians have experienced, according to the findings of the sixth Survey of America’s Physicians, which is conducted every other year.
A perfect storm of physician job dissatisfaction, a growing aging population, the increasing number of people with chronic diseases like obesity, the opioid epidemic and the continuing physician shortage may be putting today’s physicians under enormous pressure, according to the survey results.
“Reports of high rates of physician burnout and even abnormally high rates of physician suicide are becoming common. Indeed, physicians have the highest rate of suicide of any profession, more than twice that of the general population,” according to the
report.
Meanwhile, some doctors are changing their practice patterns or quitting the profession entirely, which in turn reduces patient access.
“Physician satisfaction and physician practice patterns are matters of public health and should be considered as a part of any comprehensive policy to ensure patient access to timely, quality care,” according to the report.
The e-mail survey of nearly 8,800 U.S. physicians — including 461 physicians in Florida — examined practice patterns, career plans, the impact of poverty on health-care outcomes and how physicians are responding to the opioid crisis.
Some of the survey findings include:
The number of independent U.S. physicians continues to drop. In 2018, 31 percent reported being independent, compared with 33 percent in 2016.
80 percent of physicians said they were at full capacity or were overextended.
62 percent said they were pessimistic about the future of medicine.
About 70 percent said they were prescribing fewer pain medications.
46 percent said they planned to change career paths.
About one-third said they didn’t see Medicaid patients or saw only a limited number.
More than 80 percent said they didn’t believe payment for quality will improve care or reduce costs.
Nearly half didn’t recommend medicine as a career path for their children.
Nearly half said the relationship between physicians and hospitals are somewhat or mostly negative.
The majority said patient relationships were their greatest source of professional satisfaction. In contrast, electronic health records were their greatest source of professional dissatisfaction.
“It is the inability of physicians to be physicians that is the primary driver of their professional dissatisfaction,” according to the report.
The survey also included handwritten comments by some of the responding physicians:
“Stop passing regulations in the name of ‘quality.’ The idea of quality and what it represents has to be scrutinized and narrowed. Every good idea cannot become a metric of ‘quality.’ ”
“There are no primary care physicians in my community that will even see Medicare or Medicaid patients. They simply can’t afford the loss as it costs more to see them than these insurances cover.”
“Stop shifting clerical duties to physicians. Who came up with the idea that data entry clerical skills and clinical medicine skills strongly correlate or collocate?”
“I do more paper care than patient care.”
“Wake up! The system is failing, more extreme in poverty areas but all Americans will ultimately be affected.”
“Employing physicians breaks the fundamental physician/patient relationship when you are given a patient because of who you work for, not how good you are!”
“Retiring completely in one month. Mostly because of burnout. I find it stressful to adequately treat my patients and keep up with all insurance red tape and government regulations.”
At least half the patients I see would not need to see me if they were not overweight.”
The good news is that interest in medical school remains high. The number of applicants to U.S. medical schools rose by 35 percent to 53,000 applications between 2006 and 2016, according to the report.
“What attracts most physicians to medicine is the unique nature of the physician/patient relationship, a fact confirmed by this survey,” according to the report. “The majority of physicians submit to the grueling and expensive grind that is medical education and training primarily in order to play a positive role in the lives of other human beings. And that is the root of the dichotomy seen in the medical profession today.”
The survey was conducted by Merritt Hawkins and was completed in September.