Survey: 54% of Physicians Plan on Employment Change

Thirty six percent of those planning for an employment change noted considering early retirement or all together leaving the practice of medicine.

A version of this article was first published March 24, 2021, by HCPro's Credentialing Resource Center, a sibling publication to HealthLeaders.

About 70% of physicians in a 400-person survey from Jackson Physician Search reported being actively disengaged from their employers. The survey took place between October and November 2020. Fifty four percent of physicians in the survey noted they are planning to make an employment change, with 50% of those planning to make an employment change planning to leave their current employer for another. Thirty six percent of those planning for an employment change noted considering early retirement or all together leaving the practice of medicine.

On the other side of the coin, only 30% of the 86 healthcare administrators surveyed reported losing physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to researchers, the findings suggest a “mass exit” of physicians in the near future.

Earlier research has suggested that the annual cost of physician burnout is conservatively estimated at $4.6 billion, so this impending exodus could be extremely costly for healthcare organizations, the researchers note, as recruiting a new physician is time consuming and costly. When combined with the predicted physician shortages in the next 10-15 years, a crisis could be looming.

It may be useful for organizations to take this information and better develop their physician retention programs, as 83% of physician respondents to the survey said their organization has no physician retention program in place.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on our sister site, acdis.org. The Jackson Physician Search survey report can be found here. To read about earlier reports related to physician burnout and retention, click here.