1. Overworked and Undervalued: Unmasking Primary Care Physicians’ Dissatisfaction in 10 High-Income Countries
- Author:
- Evan D. Gumas, Munira Z. Gunja, Arnav Shah, and Reginald D. Williams II
- Publication Date:
- 08-2023
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Commonwealth Fund
- Abstract:
- In many countries, including the United States, primary care physicians are reaching a breaking point.1 In 2021, an estimated 117,000 physicians in the U.S. left the workforce for reasons like retirement, burnout, and pandemic-related stressors.2 During the COVID-19 pandemic, primary care physicians around the world saw a dramatic fall in in-person visits in favor of telehealth, accompanied in some countries by decreases in revenue.3 The Commonwealth Fund also found that most primary care physicians experienced increases in their workload because of more time spent processing insurance payments, getting patients medications or treatments because of coverage restrictions, and reporting clinical or quality of care data to external entities. This has contributed to increased stress, emotional distress, demoralization, and burnout.4 This brief explores primary care physician work satisfaction in the first year of the pandemic — 2020 to 2021 — drawing from the 2022 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians. (See “How We Conducted This Survey” for more details.) Understanding how primary care physicians feel about their everyday work is crucial to improving their patients’ quality of care and to reversing the steady stream of professionals exiting the primary health care workforce. Across 10 high-income countries, including the U.S., we compare primary care physicians’ time spent with patients, number of patients seen, and job satisfaction.
- Topic:
- Health Care Policy, Public Health, Primary Care, and Dissatisfaction
- Political Geography:
- North America, Global Focus, and United States of America