Recently, I came across an article about Physician Burnout in one of the HealthCare websites, specified majorly on the amount of stress, a Physician goes through just in a day. It isn’t about ‘not’ going out for an annual Vacation or about ‘not’ going out for a Movie over weekends; but in this busy schedule, there are times when Physicians even forget to have their Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner; there have been weeks that they don’t get to see their families.

What is Physician’s Burnout according to the article?

Physician Burnout is an ongoing concern in the medical field. Trying to manage the stress of patient cases, administrative tasks and balancing life challenges are among the reasons why physicians are feeling the pressure.

There are couple of factors to know about Physician Burnouts:

Emergency Physicians the Most Burned Out: In 2017, the facts seem to point that emergency doctors still suffer the highest rates of burnout at 59% agreeing they felt burned out. This was closely followed by obstetricians and gynecologists at 56%. Family and Internal rated at 55% for experiencing physician burnout.

In 2017, the facts seem to point that emergency doctors still suffer the highest rates of burnout at 59% agreeing they felt burned out. This was closely followed by obstetricians and gynecologists at 56%. Family and Internal rated at 55% for experiencing physician burnout. Female and Younger Physicians feel the pressure: Female physicians rated themselves higher on the physician burnout scale at 55% compared to male physicians rating themselves at 45%. Physicians under the age of 45 also suffered higher burnout rates compared to those over age 45.

Female physicians rated themselves higher on the physician burnout scale at 55% compared to male physicians rating themselves at 45%. Physicians under the age of 45 also suffered higher burnout rates compared to those over age 45. Administrative and computer tasks causing burnout: “Too many administrative tasks” was a key cause of frustration and physician burnout. On a scale of 1 to 7, most surveyed physicians listed, administrative tasks as higher than 5. This was closely followed by “too many hours at work, which rated as 4.7. Interestingly, “increased computerization of the practice (EHR)” was a high rating as well at 4.5. The pressure to compile reports and complete necessary forms for Meaningful Use, Insurance compliance and the Affordable Care Act changes are all causing doctors to “feel like a cog in a wheel.”

“Too many administrative tasks” was a key cause of frustration and physician burnout. On a scale of 1 to 7, most surveyed physicians listed, administrative tasks as higher than 5. This was closely followed by “too many hours at work, which rated as 4.7. Interestingly, “increased computerization of the practice (EHR)” was a high rating as well at 4.5. The pressure to compile reports and complete necessary forms for Meaningful Use, Insurance compliance and the Affordable Care Act changes are all causing doctors to “feel like a cog in a wheel.” Clinic owners ensuring if they are earning their justified revenues: They attend patients all day and send out their claims to their payor. They often have to follow up with them, or re-correct their claims, and keep in touch with the payor if they are being paid back for their hard work. Even those Physicians who chose to have a Billing team inside their clinics worry about the quality of their work and keep worrying about their administration costs.

It almost broke my heart out when I read through this article. When you see a fellow human-being going through a hell of a trauma, only to ensure that I am healthy enough for my own sustainability, it creates many thoughts of how we could help them back. I’m glad to work in a HealthCare IT firm; where I get to talk to the Physicians, we assist. As soon as I read this article, I decided to speak to all the Physicians in my network, and check with them if they are going through something like this, and as a HealthCare IT professional, what can I do to help them? The whole team decided to complete the survey and talk to everyone. We built a sheet ensuring all the questions to be asked and checked.

We were surprised with the results that came out! Our client-Physicians had a lot of interesting information to share with us. Though they experience heavy workflow in their clinics, they do not experience a 59% of a burnout. For a moment, I thought the article might be a false alarm; however, we went into depth and asked the Physicians more. They claimed that it is actually iPatientCare Technology and Services that are helping them a lot to be relieved out of their daily stress. We were happy to hear this; however, we were more inquisitive to know ‘How’?

The iPatientCare EHR is a simple and intuitive web-based electronic medical records software, which makes their patient charting, e-prescribing, scheduling, and other tasks easy, so that they are able to devote more time to their patients and to themselves. Its user-centric design and high performance architecture allows the Physicians and their staff to work efficiently, again leaving a lot of time for all of them, ensuring a peace of mind. With iPatientCare EHR, the Physicians are able to create their own templates and order sets, which help them extensively. According to our research, a senior Physician takes an average of 1 minute to complete the clinical notes and a junior Physician is able to complete the notes on an average of 30-40 seconds, excluding dictations.

Further, iPatientCare-billing software is a complete medical practice management software that allows their Front Office and Back Office staff to work easily and efficiently. It also generates cleaner claims to get them paid faster and receive higher reimbursements. iPatientCare Practice Management System has a workflow to bring-in efficiency in all areas of operations in their Medical Practice. From front office verifying insurances or collecting co-pays, to documentation of the visit with appropriate charge capture, submitting claims, posting payments, managing the collections and accounts receivable – all are linked together like a chain. The collaborative workflow provides streamlined communication, time efficiency and effective tracking mechanism, as an effective healthcare practice management software should have.

About iPatientCare – RCM Services: Our Physicians dramatically witnessed reduction in A/R days and improved collections rates, reduced billing costs, eliminated burden of repeatable, high volume work on their internal teams, and plug gaps in staffing and internal bandwidth. This is all because of iPatientCare’s RCM services’ whose key strength are its People, Processes and Technology that works cohesively like a well-oiled machine!

“We were facing huge A/R and we initiated iPatientCare partnerships with A/R clean-up as the primary goal. We clearly made the right choice – iPatientCare helped lowering net A/R days from 100+ to below 30 in unbelievably short time. We are now solely depended on iPatientCare for Eligibility verification and many other services, which brings us even greater business benefits.” – Capital Hearts Associates, NC.

After this survey, we are really happy to realize that our products and services are actually helping our Physicians and their staff, and it is ensuring them a peace of mind to each and every one in their practice. A happy mind is a happy environment; and we all know that it is happiness and satisfaction that attracts people towards you. And this was told to us by one of our Physicians that this satisfaction and peace of mind helped them invite a lot more patients to their clinics.