The Great Physician Exodus: How Bureaucracy, Burnout, and Bean Counters Are Driving Doctors Away

American Thinker ^ | 11/03/2025 | Brian C. Joondeph, M.D.

[SeekAndFind]

A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that nearly 5% of U.S. physicians left clinical practice in 2019, representing a 40% increase in just six years.

It confirms what every practicing doctor already knows: America’s physicians are burning out, checking out, and getting out, with female physicians and those in rural areas being the most likely to exit.

The study, conducted by Rotenstein and colleagues from Yale, UCLA, and UCSF, examined over 700,000 physicians who treated Medicare patients and found that doctors caring for older, sicker, and poorer patients were more likely to leave the profession. Although the paper is descriptive rather than prescriptive, the message is clear -- the medical profession is hemorrhaging.

Medicine has become the only profession where the customer isn’t the patient, the boss isn’t the doctor, and the computer always wins.

Image generated by ChatGPT

The reasons for this mass departure aren’t mysterious; they’re baked into the system.

For many doctors, it’s death by a thousand clicks. The modern doctor’s day is no longer defined by caring for patients but about feeding the bureaucratic beast. Electronic health records were promoted as time-savers, but they quickly became time thieves. 

For every hour of patient care, physicians spend nearly two hours on documentation and desk work. None of it enhances health care, but all of it keeps lawyers and administrators satisfied. Sacrificed are evenings with family, replaced by late-night charting marathons to satisfy billing requirements.

Then there’s malpractice anxiety, the ever-present sword of Damocles. Roughly one in three physicians has faced a lawsuit at some point in their career. Even in states with tort reform, a single bad outcome or an opportunistic attorney can bring years of stress and financial burden. 

[SeekAndFind]

The result is “defensive medicine,” where tests and referrals are ordered not because patients need them but because lawyers might. There is also the psychological stress.

Add to that decreasing reimbursements and increasing costs. Medicare physician payments have fallen 33% since 2001 after adjusting for inflation, while practice expenses have risen 59% during the same period.

Insurers set payment rates that barely cover overhead, while inflation, staffing shortages, and mandatory technology upgrades push expenses higher. Independent physicians, those who still see medicine as a calling rather than a corporate job, are selling out to hospitals.

According to the AMA, “The share of physicians working in private practices in 2024 was 42.2 percent, a decline of 18 percentage points from 60.1 percent in 2012.” In other words, less than half of doctors remain in private practice.

[TomServo]

modern doctor’s day is no longer defined by caring for patients but about feeding the bureaucratic beast.

Exactly why my brother quit.

[Jim W N]

Reason #572 why we MUST NUKE UNCONSTITUTIONAL FEDERAL GOV’T “HEATHCARE” AKA DEATH PROTOCOL!!!!!!

[9YearLurker]

But we’ll always have plastic surgeons.

[Java4Jay]

AI doctors will fix this

[Tell It Right]

Imagine how much more time the doctors would have with less illegals and less Obamacare paperwork.

[Jeff Chandler]

Medicine is an assembly line and doctors paint by the numbers.

[MMusson]

One of the BIGGEST factors is the number of female Doctors being trained! On average, female doctors quit working full time within 7 years of graduation.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

These are the latest numbers I could find. If you can find more current numbers, be my guest.

[SpaceBar]

Our entire medical establishment is socialist e.g. fixed prices, mediocre care for all, the built-in assumption that ‘insurance’ will pick up the tab, etc. Once America gets back to its roots and private sector medicine is allowed to thrive, like Walmart getting into the biz for example, prices will plummet and quality will rise as a natural consequence of free-market enterprise. And that said, Obamacare needs to be repealed in Congress, not replaced, just repealed.

[kawhill]

My daughter told me she saw 26 patients in a ten hour shift. Then had to do charting on the weekend to catch up. I don’t know how much longer she’ll be willing to do that job.

[SpaceBar]

Top-heavy with parasitic paper-pushers, lean in physicians.

[cyclotic]

I had a medical exam today by the sketchiest doctor I could find. It was a DOT physical which I need for my job.

He has two clinics. One is in a truck stop.

Two employees help with admin. Cash or credit card only. $85. Pay in advance of exam. Besides staff and building his only expense is a plastic cup for a urine test.

He actually seems to be a good guy. I’ve had several exams done by him. He’s got the right idea. Skip anything having to do with insurance. Cash only. Minimal drama.

And he had a very nice new Porsche in the parking lot.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

All that overhead is to support the health insurance bureaucracy. Get rid of health insurance and 90% of it goes away.

[caddie]

Millions more administrative people with no real work to do. They dream up problems. Never see or transport or bathe a patient.

Software is for data entry for billing purposes. Terrible at helping nurses or physicians in their jobs.

Outrageous costs of frilly equipment and disposables. Someone getting huge kickbacks to keep this all going.

No real market to drive prices down. Hospitals disobey new laws to publish prices.Hospitals, Pharma, Insurers, corrupt Gov. officials: All are in on keeping the system inflated as it is. Very corrupt.

[mewzilla]

The EMRs regs in GWB’s first Porkulus were designed to drive the independent doctor out of his/her practice and into health systems.

If we want better healthcare, we need to change laws and regs to make it worthwhile for medical practioners who want to go independent to do so.

I’m tired of seeing HCPs whose first concern is pleasing the outfit signing their paychecks.

[hanamizu]

Although not quite as extreme a similar chart could be made for classroom teachers and administrators/other school employees.

[alternatives?]

The students that chose to become a doctor after Obama care is different than those before. The prior doctors who choose this career are not staying in it as long. People thought they could change the system and have the same doctors. It doesn’t happen that way.

[Seaplaner]

... Bureaucracy, Burnout, and Bean Counters Are Driving Doctors Away

True this, and also weasel attorneys and their weasel confederates in state legislatures and the congress.

Docs live in constant fear of getting sued for faked injuries.

[FlingWingFlyer]

This is why when college kids are rioting with their muzzie terrorist pals, they are getting degrees in “How To Live Happy”, Beyonce and Tater Swuft money counting methods.