The cost of replacing a physician can be double or triple their annual salary.
This article was originally published by HCPro's Credentialing Resource Center May 1, 2018.
Hospitals and health systems may be losing billions of dollars due to physician burnout, according to a paper released by the National Taskforce for Humanity in Healthcare.
Burnout-related turnover may cost health systems up to $1.7 billion annually for hospital-employed physicians and up to $17 billion across all U.S. physician, according to the paper's estimates.
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The paper based its estimates on data on physician turnover rates due to burnout and turnover costs. The cost of replacing a physician is estimated to be two-to three times the physician’s annual salary once recruitment, onboarding, and lost patient care revenue are factored in.
The paper suggested system-level solutions to burnout. These include re-framing the dialogue from burnout prevention to creation of systems that support resilience and well-being, adopting a metric for humanity that focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of emotional thriving and resilience, and creating a plan for a systematic culture shift to a human-centered care system.
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