The Role of Financial Pressures in the Provider Burnout Crisis
Written by: Katie Wilson, Veradigm, and Cheryl Reifsnyder, PhD
Physician burnout has long been an issue in the U.S., but it has reached crisis levels in the past decade. In Medscape’s 2024 Physician Burnout & Depression Report, 49% of physicians reported burnout. Although 2023 survey data from the American Medical Association (AMA) showed physician burnout had dropped below 50% for the first time since 2020, the number remains high (45.2% of physicians reporting 1 or more burnout symptoms).
Unfortunately, burnout has far-reaching impacts. Affected clinicians are at increased risk of depression, anxiety, and a variety of other symptoms that affect both personal quality of life and the ability to deliver high-quality patient care. Symptoms such as depersonalization and cognitive fatigue can impair clinical judgement and interfere with clinicians’ ability to empathize with patients. Burnout is also associated with increased medical errors: According to one study, errors among surgeons with burnout symptoms increased 2.5-fold. In addition, patient outcomes and satisfaction worsened.
The negative effects of burnout reach beyond individual physicians and their patients to impact the organizations where they practice. Since more than a third of physicians dealing with burnout plan to stop seeing patients within 3 years, shortages of primary care physicians (who are especially affected by burnout) are increasing. As primary care is crucial for improving patients’ health outcomes and preventing hospitalizations, this shortage is expected to increase the costs of patient care. The increased medical errors and decreased quality of care associated with burnout create additional financial strain, as healthcare organizations must deal with the direct costs of physicians leaving practice due to burnout. Some estimate the cost of each leaving physician to be between $500,000 and $1 million, depending on specialty.
Clinicians’ growing administrative and financial responsibilities, such as coding, billing, and revenue cycle management, are among the top contributors to burnout. Evolving regulations, frequent policy changes, and complex payer reimbursement processes have increased documentation requirements for claims submissions—and many of these requirements are inconsistent or duplicative.
The only way to combat the growing burnout epidemic among clinicians is to understand how financial and administrative burdens contribute to burnout—and then take action to mitigate these pressures on physicians.
Billing, coding, and revenue cycle management challenges
Evolving reimbursement models, standards for claims submissions, and government requirements: On their own, these changes make it increasingly difficult for practices to navigate the end-to-end revenue cycle successfully. However, these challenges are magnified by persistent healthcare staffing shortages. Shortages of coders, billing personnel, schedulers, and even front-office staff responsible for verifying patient information result in additional pressure on practice clinicians.7
As revenue cycle management becomes more challenging, practices must contend with increased days in accounts receivable (A/R), higher claims denial rates, and declining staff morale and productivity. These collective challenges significantly contribute to physician burnout, making it more difficult to maintain a healthy practice revenue cycle without compromising the primary goal of providing high-quality patient care.
Fortunately, there’s good news: A wide range of modern provider-focused solutions can help reduce the growing financial and administrative strains on providers—and thus reduce their contribution to clinician burnout.
How modern provider solutions can help
The AMA’s Physician’s Guide to Effective Revenue Cycle Management notes that success in revenue cycle management hinges on several key strategies. One of these is utilization of “AI and automation to unburden physicians and administrative staff to spend more time on higher value responsibilities.” Preliminary data already show the effectiveness of this strategy. According to recent surveys, although medical practices are increasingly challenged by rising staffing costs and administrative burdens, overall spending on administrative tasks has remained constant—primarily due to the increased use of automation to lighten manual workloads.
Practices can achieve both time and financial savings by embracing automation. This helps reduce staff burnout by enabling clinicians to deliver quality care more efficiently, thereby improving both staff satisfaction and patient care.
Automating and outsourcing with Veradigm
Veradigm is committed to reducing physician burnout. To that end, we offer several solutions to help reduce the financial and administrative pressures on clinicians.
Veradigm Coding Services
In today’s healthcare environment, coding complexity is increasing even as practices face a shortage of qualified coding staff. This creates significant administrative and financial pressure on clinicians. Veradigm Coding Services exists specifically to help your practice address these challenges. By combining automation and outsourcing, this comprehensive solution helps practices optimize coding processes and improve the revenue cycle.
Veradigm Coding Services integrates seamlessly with your existing EHR to deliver technology-enabled workflows and AI-assisted tools that use intelligent pattern recognition and automation to ensure accurate coding, reduce claims denials, and enhance documentation processes. It also pairs your practice with a team of certified coders with more than 30 years’ experience managing complex claims. Veradigm’s coding experts continuously monitor local, state, and federal coding regulations to ensure compliance, precision, and reliability.
Our clients have seen numerous benefits with Veradigm Coding Services, including:
- Average coding accuracy rates of 97% or higher1
- Revenue increases of 3% to 5%2
- Increased workflow efficiency and improved KPIs
The combination of AI-assisted technology and quality assurance processes can help your practice maintain a high level of coding accuracy and reduce risk of audits across specialties.
Veradigm Revenue Cycle Analytics
Veradigm Revenue Cycle Analytics is a cloud-based financial analytics platform that delivers critical decision support with real-time actionable data for your decision-makers.3 Its analytics enable your practice to increase overall revenue cycle management efficiency. It can help you:
- Optimize practice performance: Use automation and advanced analytics to improve efficiencies, which, in turn, help clinicians improve focus on patient care.
- Improve financial health: Decrease A/R days, reduce claim errors, and process fewer claim denials.
Veradigm Revenue Cycle Analytics delivers measurable benefits, including 99% net collections, a 98% first-pass clean claims rate, and an average revenue improvement of 3% to 5%.4
This solution is available with either automated or subscription-based reporting. It is offered both as a standalone service and as part of the comprehensive Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services program.8
Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services
Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services is an end-to-end revenue cycle management solution designed to optimize your practice’s financial performance. Service teams support everything from communicating with health plans to coding and claims, while integrating into your practice’s existing EHR and practice management workflows.
Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services provides:
- Claims and denial management by a specialized team that oversees claims processing and denial management, improving first-pass claim success, resolving rejections, and reducing denials
- Full account management by industry experts
- Advanced AI-enabled analytics to provide real-time insights and actionable reporting, driving continuous improvement in revenue cycle performance
The Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services team has more than 30 years’ experience working with 27K+ providers, handling $4.2 billion in annual payments for clients in over 35 specialties.5 Our clients have averaged improvements such as:9
- 98% first-pass clean claims rate
- 99% net collections
- 3% to 5% revenue improvement during the first year6
By helping healthcare organizations manage their financial processes, we reduce administrative burdens and enable your team to devote more time to high-quality patient care.
Finding solutions with Veradigm
In 2026, physician burnout threatens the quality of patient care. It threatens physicians’ mental health and well-being, and even the overall stability of the U.S. healthcare system. Combating physician burnout has become more crucial than ever.
The first step is identifying burnout’s underlying causes.
Research shows that financial pressures and the administrative burdens associated with financial tasks contribute significantly to physician burnout. Veradigm’s commitment to mitigating physician burnout is one reason we created and continually improve solutions designed to decrease those pressures. Contact us today to learn how solutions such as Veradigm Revenue Cycle Analytics, Veradigm Coding Services, and Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services can help your practice manage financial and administrative pressures, or to schedule a free online evaluation of your practice’s current revenue cycle performance.
References:
- Veradigm data on file, Q1 2025.
- Veradigm data on file, 2024. Results may vary.
- Veradigm data on file, Q3 2025.
- Veradigm data on file, 2025. Average results after the first 12 months.
- Veradigm data on file, Q3 2025.
- Veradigm data on file, 2025. Average results after the first 12 months.
- Veradigm, 2023. Veradigm Revenue Cycle Services – Data Sheet. VDMP-848-1.
- Veradigm, 2025. Veradigm® Revenue Cycle Services. VDMP-748.
- Veradigm, 2025. Veradigm® Revenue Cycle Services. VDMP-748.