Low wages, high workloads and labor shortages are all contributing to an epidemic of burnout among U.S. doctors, and it could be a disaster for health care, a new survey finds.
Around 81% of doctors say they are overworked in the field Physician Remuneration Report 2024 released today from Doximityan online networking platform for healthcare professionals, shared exclusively with Fortune. Researchers surveyed 33,000 full-time U.S. doctors in 2023 and drew on data from thousands of other recent surveys. 88% say the current shortage of doctors is hurting their practice, and 86% say they are concerned about the U.S. healthcare system’s ability to care for an aging population.
Morale is so low that around 30% of doctors are considering early retirement – a potential disaster for a country where 70% of the population already feels like the health system. failed them.
“We find ourselves in a position where we are often at the end of our rope,” says Dr. Amit Phull, Doximity’s chief medical experience officer and emergency medicine physician. Fortune. “I think as the (pandemic) dust settles, there’s a lot of reconsideration for people who, at first, might have thought, ‘This is the place I need to be, this is why I trained.’ They are now reconsidering medical careers, in terms of cost and balance.
More work for less pay
Doctors have always had a difficult job, from long hours to emotionally taxing conversations., Or a dizzying responsibility.
But today’s patients are sicker than they were a few decades ago and often suffer from multiple comorbidities like arthritis, diabetes and asthma. “The prospect of caring for this aging and sicker population is all the more daunting,” Phull says.
Doctors are also overwhelmed by a heavy administrative burden, one of the biggest wastes of 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 an additional one to two hours at night. About 75% of doctors surveyed said reducing their administrative burden could significantly improve feelings of overwork and burnout.
“This imbalance between what we went to school for, what we trained for, and what we practically, actually do? I think the improvements can be quite substantial,” says Phull.
And even though physician salaries are increasing overall, the top numbers don’t tell the whole story. The average physician salary increased 6% in 2023, according to the report, and doctors in major metropolitan areas like San Jose, California, and St. Louis, Missouri, earn salaries of around $450,000. But Medicare doctor payments have fallen 26 percent since 2001, the report said, and many regions are not properly adjusting doctors’ salaries after several years of skyrocketing inflation. Many doctors also carry the burden of medical school debt, with the average loan given to doctors being around $200,000, according to the Educational Data Initiative.
That means that even though some doctors earn big salaries, adjusted compensation for many has actually declined — a bitter pill to swallow, especially since many Americans still believe that all doctors are rich.
Certainly, compared to the median income of the American workforce, doctors are still well paid. The average salary for full-time U.S. workers is just over $59,000, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics. income report, while the average pay for doctors in metropolitan areas is around $400,000. But according to Phull, the gap between how people still perceive doctors’ pay and how demanding and precarious the work has become is one of the factors leading to feelings of burnout and disillusionment.
“As a physician, in today’s healthcare system, there is a dissonance between reality and the perceptions of others,” he says.
The gender wage gap, which plagues the entire U.S. workforce, is also particularly pronounced among this group of professionals. It decreased slightly to 23% in 2023 from 26% in 2022, according to the report, but it remains significant. Female doctors earn on average nearly $102,000 less than their male counterparts. Doximity further estimated that over the course of a career, male physicians earn more than $2 million more than women in the same field.
“I couldn’t believe it was that high,” says Dr. Tina Chu. Fortune. As a San Diego-based pediatrician, Chu works in one of the lowest-paid fields of medicine, in one of the most underpaid regions in the country.
“Reading the report was definitely a little discouraging,” she adds. “But it also brought awareness and transparency, because without it I wouldn’t have known where I stood, my potential value, or the ability to defend myself in the future.”
The future of practicing medicine
As the U.S. population ages, so do doctors.
Even before questions around burnout leading to early retirements, an older physician population posed a threat to the existing healthcare system. Doximity report supports precedents results published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) that 20% of today’s doctors are 65 or older, and 22% are between 55 and 64. The organization predicts that the United States will face a shortage of doctors up to 86,000 doctors by 2036.
The question of finding their replacements is complicated, according to Phull. For starters, new doctors aren’t entering the job market fast enough. And the creation of new positions that could help alleviate the shortage of doctors, including nurse practitioners and physician assistants, is also failing to keep pace with the cascading workforce shortage.
So are we all doomed? Not necessarily, says Phull, who, despite all these challenges, remains optimistic about the future of the American health care system. Many doctors hope, for example, that the Federal Trade Commission’s recent decision ban on non-competition clauses can end up being an advantage.
“It could lead to huge changes in the field, where there would be a lot more mobility for doctors like me (who) hold licenses in a few states,” he says. “My ability to potentially practice in a multitude of other regions could grow exponentially, which would ideally alleviate some of this medical workforce shortage issue.” »
Respondents also 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 , expand virtual visit options to improve patient access to care, and use AI tools. to help with administrative tasks.
“Doctors surveyed said they could save between 12 and 13 hours per week if they had well-developed AI tools (for) documentation, helping them with their notes, helping them with call letters “, explains Phill. “So I think that could be a huge improvement.”
