Health Care Burnout is Real – How Can You Address It?
The healthcare industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in this country, but it is also one of the most demanding. Burnout can be a serious issue in any medical practice. It is true even at the best of times, but the pressure on the medical facilities has become enormous during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Here is how employee burnout can impact your practice and how a partnership with an answering service for healthcare providers can help.
Health Care Burnout and Its Effects
According to a recent discussion paper released by the National Academy of Medicine, burnout among health care professionals is an under-recognized threat to high-quality, safe medical care. 64% of U.S. physicians experience signs of burnout since the global pandemic began in early 2020. Studies of nurses also reveal high rates of burnout and depression.
Some of the reasons why practice should closely monitor and address this issue include:
- Quality and safety. When burnout is present, there is a greater chance of medical mistakes, which leads to a lower quality of care and costly liability issues.
- Patient satisfaction. Burnout is a source of depersonalized service, which might cause low patient satisfaction scores.
- Job dissatisfaction. When employees are not happy, there is the danger that they will reduce work efforts and could even resign abruptly, leaving a practice short-staffed.
- Health care costs. Costs will increase due to higher turnover rates, having to repeat tests and other expenditures associated with medical errors.
- Personal consequences. Burnout is associated with higher rates of depression, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation.
How Can You Address Health Care Burnout?
The tremendous increase in patients’ inflow and the level of danger all medical personal have to face this year is impossible to overestimate. However, on the administrative side, there are some aspects that can be controlled. Most involve staffing issues, such as requiring employees to work longer hours or overburdening them with too many tasks at once. One of the best ways to address these issues is to partner with a doctor’s answering service.
A professional medical answering service can ease some of these burdens. Highly-trained call operators will answer your practice’s phones at any hour of the day or night, acting as an extension of your business.
Call operators can schedule medical appointments using your system, provide medical dispatch services, and even make appointment reminder calls. All this can help to free up your medical personal and reduce your no-show rates.
Get Started with a Medical Answering Service
As the U.S. healthcare industry evolves to provide the best level of care, it must also take into account the challenge of overworking medical professionals. If health care professionals are increasingly feeling burnt out, it will have a negative impact on patient care and satisfaction levels.
Your practice can remove some of the staff’s daily burdens by partnering with doctors’ answering service. Contact Answering365 now to find out more about our professional answering services for health care providers. Get our medical brochure to get started.