Physician Burnout: Why It Remains a Crisis
Written by: Katie Wilson, Veradigm, and Cheryl Reifsnyder, PhD
Physician burnout has been a long-standing issue in U.S. healthcare. Physicians—especially younger doctors and those in primary care and emergency medicine—report higher burnout rates in the U.S. than in other nations. Physicians also exhibit a consistently higher burnout risk than other U.S. workers.
Physician burnout rates have surged in recent years. Survey data from the American Medical Association shows that physician burnout peaked at 62.8% in 2021; in 2023, the physician burnout rate dropped below 50% for the first time since 2020, with 45.2% reporting one or more burnout symptoms. Similarly, Medscape’s 2024 Physician Burnout & Depression Report found 49% of physicians reported burnout, slightly fewer than the previous year—but still alarmingly high.
Burnout has serious consequences for both healthcare professionals and patients. Physician burnout is tied to increased depression and anxiety. Physicians experiencing burnout are more likely to leave practice early, contributing to nationwide clinician shortages. Burnout has also been associated with increased medical errors and lower-quality patient care, placing additional financial strain on healthcare organizations.
The rate of physician burnout may have improved slightly, but burnout remains a nationwide crisis. Understanding burnout—its causes and consequences—is crucial. Only then can practices begin to make targeted organizational and technological changes to correct a system where daily pressures and requirements make it increasingly difficult for physicians to provide patient care without neglecting their own mental health.
Causes of physician burnout
Many factors contribute to burnout, including administrative, environmental, technological, and personal pressures. However, many clinicians rank administrative burden as the top contributor.
Administrative burden
The growing administrative burden on clinicians stems partly from the significant increase in documentation requirements seen in recent years. Evolving regulations, frequent policy changes, and multiple, complex reimbursement processes have heightened documentation requirements for clinicians, including requirements that may be inconsistent or duplicative.
In Medscape’s 2024 Physician Burnout & Depression Report, 62% of physicians identified administrative tasks, such as charting and paperwork, as burnout contributors. In a more recent, but smaller, survey by The Harris Poll for Strategic Education, Inc., 82% of clinicians reported burnout symptoms. This 2025 survey found clinicians spend about 28 hours weekly on administrative duties; office and claims personnel spend even longer. This administrative load extends beyond practice hours. Physicians spend about 1.77 hours daily on electronic documentation outside standard clinic hours.
The heavy administrative burden falls on both practice staff and physicians. In the Harris Poll, 81% of staff reported burnout symptoms, resulting in decreased staff retention; the lack of adequate support staff, in turn, further increases pressure on physicians.
Together, these factors divert clinician time from patient care and can cause work-life imbalance, creating additional pressures that contribute to burnout.
Electronic Health Record (EHR)-related stress
Originally intended to streamline workflows, EHRs have instead become a significant driver of physician burnout. Multiple studies show a direct correlation between EHR use and burnout. One study found that 75% of physicians experiencing burnout named their EHRs as the primary cause.
It makes sense that EHRs would significantly impact clinicians’ well-being. According to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, physicians spend more than 5 hours on the EHR for every 8 hours spent with patients, time that is often after hours. Clinicians face greater odds of burnout when EHR use is unintuitive or time-consuming, or when they lack sufficient time for documentation. Poor EHR usability is also associated with decreased quality of patient care.
Unfavorable work environments
Unfavorable work environments are also closely tied to the development of burnout symptoms. Characteristics of “unfavorable” environments include:
- Time pressure
- Chaotic work environment
- Lack of control over workplace conditions
In contrast, practices that implement “physician-friendly” practices—such as giving doctors greater control over clinical issues and decreasing time stress—improve physician well-being.
Impacts of physician burnout
The impact of physician burnout extends beyond clinicians, spilling over into patient care, teamwork, and even the stability of the healthcare system as a whole.
Physicians
The ICD-11’s definition of burnout lists several defining symptoms, any of which will clearly lower physicians’ quality of life:
- Emotional exhaustion
- Depersonalization
- Decreased sense of personal accomplishment
Burnout also causes sleep problems and is strongly associated with mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. As a result, over a third of physicians experiencing burnout plan to stop seeing patients within 3 years.
Patients
Burnout symptoms such as depersonalization and cognitive fatigue can impair physicians’ clinical judgment and ability to empathize with patients. As a result, physician burnout undermines the quality of patient care and patient safety. One study found burnout associated with a 2.5-times higher rate of medical errors among surgeons. Burnout has also been linked to an increased infection rate, poorer outcomes, and decreased patient satisfaction.
Physician burnout has led to a shortage of primary care physicians, leaving more patients unable to find or keep a primary care provider. Physician burnout can also interfere with patients’ continuity of care.
Healthcare organizations
Burnout contributes to significant financial losses for healthcare organizations. For instance, primary care is crucial both for improving patients’ health outcomes and for preventing hospitalizations and other costly medical services; however, the shortage of primary care physicians is expected to increase such expenses.
Some estimate that each physician who leaves practice due to burnout costs their practice between $500,000 and $1 million, depending on the specialty.
Technology and EHR-related solutions
Technology may have been part of the problem, but it also promises solutions. Digital tools designed with physicians’ input can help lighten the administrative burden instead of just contributing.
EHR optimization and workflow redesign
One essential step in fighting burnout is optimizing the EHR to improve usability and clinician workflow. Many EHRs have poor usability, hindering clinicians’ ability to access and input patient information. Simple usability improvements such as streamlined interfaces, customizable dashboards, better navigation, and simplifying data entry can greatly lessen clinicians’ documentation burden. This helps reduce physicians’ after-hours work and improves satisfaction.
EHR usability is also diminished in systems that generate too many or irrelevant alerts and notifications. Too many notifications can lead to alert fatigue, often causing clinicians to overlook critical patient information.
Automation
Leveraging automation for repetitive, manual tasks can also ease administrative workload. For instance, many practices manually perform numerous steps in the traditional claims submission workflow, including:
- Insurance verification
- Prior authorization requests
- Delivering attachments with claims submissions
Automating these tasks can significantly improve practice efficiency. It can also reduce errors, drive greater claims accuracy, increase payment speed, and generate a more predictable revenue stream. At the same time, reducing the number of “human touchpoints” in these routine processes helps restore time for direct patient interactions.
Ambient AI scribes
Healthcare professionals spend a great deal of time on documentation; according to one study, up to 78% of the time spent using the EHR is devoted to writing and reviewing notes. An ambient AI scribe such as Veradigm’s Ambient Scribe is not simply dictation software or a remote scribe. This solution captures and transcribes patient-provider interactions in real time, then synthesizes the visit transcript and clinical context to create clinical notes.
Early studies show that ambient AI scribes significantly reduce the administrative burden by reducing the time clinicians spend composing notes. Pilot programs testing the potential benefits of AI scribes have linked their use with lower burnout rates and increased clinician satisfaction.
Awareness that results in action
Physician burnout not only impacts clinicians. It has also become a system-wide threat to healthcare and patient safety. Despite recent slight improvements, physician burnout remains a pervasive issue throughout healthcare.
Awareness is the first step in addressing clinician burnout—but for change to occur, awareness must lead to action.
Fortunately, as understanding of burnout increases, solutions are becoming more accessible. Changes such as EHR optimization can reduce providers’ administrative burden and increase efficiency, allowing more time with patients and, ultimately, improving patient outcomes. Technology solutions, such as the Veradigm Ambient Scribe and Veradigm’s Enterprise Resource Planning Integrated Solutions, help providers tackle other workflow pain points found in patient encounters, practice management, and more, thereby reducing provider burnout.
If you’d like to learn more about how Veradigm can help you implement burnout-reducing solutions, contact us today for a free demonstration of solutions applicable to your unique practice needs.