Physicians provide life-saving and life-extending care to patients every day, but studies show that many doctors also overextend themselves, leading to burnout.
"The 'most stressful' professions are characterized as having a high level of responsibility and little control over the outcome," explains The Happy MD blog. "The practice of Medicine certainly fits that description and is consistently on the short list of professions with the highest inherent stress levels. This is a tough job that saps our energy every single day."
Doctors who feel overwhelmed might consider taking a vacation or scaling back the number of patients they see each day. In emergency rooms and private practices, this might be impossible or infeasible to keep a medical care facility running. That's why hospital administrators need to conduct regular evaluations of job fitness, looking for warning signs of burnout that can diminish quality of care. Most facilities have these review mechanisms in place to ensure a consistently high caliber of attention and expertise.
According to The Happy MD, one in three doctors experience burnout at any given time, and it's a trend that starts in med school. Half of med students go through exhaustion while between one-third and three-quarters of medical residents report feeling that way at any given time.
When doctors are overworked, it's not just physicians who feel the pressure. An overwhelming caseload of accounts receivable can create an unmanageable backlog for hospital administrators. Collecting on outstanding payments for too many cases can lead to inefficiency and prevent professionals from focusing on the most pressing cases. Contact Professional Medical Services to learn more about how choosing to outsource receivables management can help medical offices run efficiently.
