(Business Insider)
Overworked and unhappy doctors are costing the US billions. Physician burnout is costing the US $4.6 billion each year, according to a study published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Burnout is generally defined as long-term stress linked to your work.
The costs of burnout are related to doctors leaving health systems as well as working reduced hours, according to the study. There are about 1 million doctors in the US. The authors of the study noted that their findings suggest that there's good reason to develop programs that reduce burnout in doctors.
More than half of doctors in the US experience burnout, a rate that's twice as high as the average American worker, researchers previously found. That can have a lot to do with the number of patients doctors see and the amount of documentation that needs to be completed for each visit. Read more