Many Older Physicians Plan to Opt Out of Patient Care

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I am starting to see some of these efforts as well in my daily travels and conversations…my personal opinion here is too that much of the dignity associated with health care is being eroded with new constraints and overhead arriving almost daily at the practice door…when you compare how a practice operates today compared to 10 years ago…well there almost is no comparison…yes health care is still being practiced but the methodologies, overhead, and politics (which really shouldn’t even be here) have intervened to the point to where the dollar instead of better health care appears to be the #1 goal, something veteran MDs who have been there for us struggle with daily. These are the folks that save our lives and the overall picture of the constraints and stress they work under is not always a pretty picture. BD

IRVING, Texas, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire/ — In the next one to three years, 48 percent of physicians between the ages of 50 and 65 are planning to retire, seek non-clinical jobs, work part-time, close their practices to new patients, and/or significantly reduce the number of patients they see, a new survey indicates. The survey, conducted by Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a national physician search and consulting firm based in Irving, Texas, suggests that many experienced physicians are seeking a way out of traditional patient care roles.

Should older physicians elect to remove themselves from patient care or significantly reduce the number of patients they see, access to physicians would be greatly reduced, according to Smith.

“Almost half the physicians in the United States are 50 years old or older,” Smith observes. “An exodus of older doctors from medicine would be a disaster for patient care in this country.” The survey further indicates that many older physicians are underwhelmed by the work ethic of today’s younger physicians. Sixty-eight percent of older physicians surveyed indicated that physicians coming out of training today are less dedicated and hard working than physicians who came out of training 20 to 30 years ago.
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