Nearly half of physicians work often with an incomplete care team – and are experiencing higher rates of burnout because of it, leading some to consider leaving medicine altogether.
That’s according to a May research letter published in JAMA Network Open, and dovetails with related findings that physicians take less vacation time and frequently do work-related tasks when they do.
The JAMA cross-sectional study, conducted from December 2022 to March 2025, examined the prevalence of physicians who work with an incompletely staffed team and their associated levels of burnout, intentions to reduce clinical hours, and desires to leave their organizations.
Nearly half (47.9%) of physicians – most in primary care – reported working with understaffed teams more than 25% of the time.
Among all respondents, almost half met the criteria for burnout, and 15.4% indicated they will “likely or definitely leave” their organizations – demonstrating a significant connection between incomplete team staffing and negative outcomes.
“Our findings emphasize the importance of adequate staffing. When interpreted alongside evidence that work overload is associated with physician burnout and intent to leave … our results underscore the central role of health care teams in shaping physician experiences,” the study states.
Meanwhile, physicians seeking to take time away from these challenges may fail to do so due to another medical heavy hitter – the electronic health record (EHR), which many physicians are forced to pack into their carry-on bags when taking vacation time. According to a May study published in JAMA Network Open, primary care physicians spend 16.1 minutes of each vacation day on EHR tasks, reducing their meaningful time away from work.
Additionally, physicians are taking less paid time off on average, per January 2024 findings with 70.4% of physicians reporting working during vacations and 59.6% taking 15 or fewer vacation days a year. The study also found that EHR inbox volume remains an obstacle to physicians seeking time off, with less vacation time associated with increased rates of burnout.
Hoping to change this, the Texas Medical Association has adopted numerous policies over the years to combat EHR-related burnout. At its annual conference earlier in May, TexMed, TMA adopted policy advocating for the acceptance of EHR-generated health care forms – such as school and camp physicals and other state and federal forms – to eradicate lengthy manual processes and unnecessary expenses placed upon physician practices.
And last year, TMA took steps to address EHR burnout by adopting a resolution that sought pathways for physicians to get paid for time spent on after-hours documentation.
The policy supports:
- Increasing the relative value unit – used by Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance companies to determine how much physicians should be paid for their services based on time spent with the patient – to account for time physicians spend responding to inbox messages related to clinical care; and
- EHR vendors developing functionality to calculate the amount of time physicians spend managing the inbox both in aggregate for management purposes and per patient for billing purposes.
“The inability of most physicians to completely disengage from patient care while on vacation should be considered a system failure – one with consequences for both the patient and the physician,” the January 2024 JAMA study said.
TMA offers physicians multiple burnout resources, including downloadable brochures on stress and substance use disorders, self-assessments, CME, local medical society wellness programs, and more from its Wellness First webpage.
Alisa Pierce
Reporter, Division of Communications and Marketing
(512) 370-1469