Physician burnout costs US $4.6bn a year, study finds

Healthcare organisations that don’t invest in prevention strategies to reduce physician burnout are making false economies, a study has found.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, estimated that the annual cost of physician turnover and reduced working hours caused by burnout was $4.6bn (£3.6bn; €4.1bn) (95% confidence interval $2.6bn to $6.3bn).1 In a country where more than half of physicians report at least one symptom of burnout, that represents about $7600 per working physician per year.

The incidence of suicide among US physicians is greater than among US combat veterans, noted Edward Ellison of the …