The best way to stop the epidemic of physician burnout, veteran clinicians say, is not through counseling services or lessons on coping. The cure lies in correcting the root causes: government overregulation, check-the-box demands from electronic health records (EHRs), and insurance company meddling in patient care.
“I'm depressed because I want to focus on patient care, but I cannot,” said Sugarland internist Elizabeth Torres, MD. “Giving me an antidepressant isn't going to help.”
Research shows that physicians currently spend only about 17 minutes of every working hour in direct clinical face time with patients. And “pajama time,” where doctors spend late-night hours at home documenting the day’s work, is a common phenomenon.
The Texas Medical Association’s Healthy Vision 2025 ¾ released this week ¾ seeks to eliminate the burnout-inducing interference that wastes physicians’ time and delays their patients’ care. Recommendations to the Texas Legislature include:
- Forcing insurance companies to sharply limit prior authorization requirements and streamline the process for obtaining prior approval for medications or procedures;
- Preserving physicians’ authority to prescribe appropriate medications without pharmacies interfering or overriding their valid orders;
- Reducing the burden of required use of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program;
- Requiring EHR and health information exchanges to ensure their products can integrate data seamlessly among physicians, providers, and public health agencies; and
- Clarifying a 2017 state law to explicitly state that hospitals may not require maintenance of certification for staff privileges unless the physician members of the hospital’s medical staff affirmatively vote after Jan. 1, 2018, to do so.
“We are in a constant exercise that’s really designed to save the middleman money,” Houston internist Lisa Ehrlich, MD, said of the outside interference that drives physicians mad. “It’s not for the care of the patient, and it’s not actually really saving money. It’s a tax on our practices. It’s a tax on us.”
TMA staff and leaders already have delivered Healthy Vision 2025 to all 181 members of the legislature, to the Capitol press corps, and to other key players. For the next two weeks, a TMA campaign of paid advertisements and social media outreach will further promote the document and its legislative recommendations.
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Last Updated On
March 09, 2021
Originally Published On
January 29, 2019