It’s time to foster a culture change for physicians

For more than a decade, physicians have faced mounting pressures: steady burnout rates, persistent staffing shortages, rising administrative demands, and a workforce crisis that’s only intensifying.

Still, even in the face of these unprecedented challenges, physicians continue to show up for their patients every single day. They remind us that this profession isn’t for the faint of heart. But while their dedication to patient care hasn’t wavered, their engagement with their employers is declining.

Physician disengagement is costing health care employers an estimated $7,600 per physician annually, driven by turnover and reduced clinical hours. But the impact goes beyond the bottom line – disengagement is eroding workplace culture and threatening both patient care continuity and organizational stability. The encouraging news? There are clear, actionable opportunities for employers to re-engage their physician workforce in ways that are both meaningful and measurable.

A shift in physician sentiment

Recent data shows a concerning disconnect. While physicians continue to report relatively high satisfaction in their day-to-day patient care, 82% say they are not highly engaged in their current organizations. Only 29% would recommend their employer as a good place to work.

In other words: physicians value the work, but not the system they’re working within.

The drivers of dissatisfaction have remained consistent and predictable: work–life imbalance, overwhelming administrative burdens, and frustration with top-down decision-making. We know that physicians continue to feel overwhelmed by the administrative overload and documentation demands of the job that persistently pulls them away from time with patients. And while burnout rates have fluctuated — with significantly fewer physicians reporting symptoms in late 2023 and early 2024 compared to previous years — the underlying issues largely haven’t changed.

Moving beyond blame to action

It’s important to recognize that a blame game doesn’t make sense here. Systems, structures, and processes can be redesigned. The real opportunity lies not in pointing fingers but in leveraging physician feedback to make tangible cultural and operational improvements, starting now.

Most physicians report that they want to stay in the workforce, and they are clear about what would make the difference: more autonomy, better support, meaningful communication with leadership, and genuine influence over organizational decisions.

The question for health care leaders is: How do we close the gap and take real steps to implement these measures?

Rebuilding trust to strengthen engagement

Change is never easy, but it is possible and more importantly, it’s necessary. Trust is the foundation of health care. We know that trust between patients and physicians leads to better outcomes. But that clinical trust erodes when physicians don’t trust the health care organizations they work for.

Here’s the reality: It is the job of health care leaders to drive the culture change needed in medical workforces. This is a business imperative. It is not work that’s overly complex or prohibitively expensive, but it does require honest conversations, truthful expectation setting, and significant commitment.

Here are practical steps health care organizations can take today to begin building (or rebuilding) trust, strengthening engagement, and fostering a culture where physicians feel valued and heard:

• Establish meaningful, ongoing feedback loops that physicians can be a part of. Surveys are valuable for getting realistic temperature checks of what is happening within a health system, but they are only effective when paired with visible action. Physicians should be able to see how their input is shaping organizational decisions.
• Redefine collaboration with leadership. Include physicians in strategic discussions — invite them to the room. When decisions reflect real clinical realities, it creates a sense of shared ownership and buy-in.
• Reduce administrative burden wherever possible to allow physicians to spend as much time with patients as possible
• Recognize and communicate wins; close the loop by showing how clinician input leads to change.

Physician engagement matters

The sector is navigating significant shifts. A new federal administration, substantial Medicaid cuts, tightening margins, the continued consolidation of health systems, and growing expectations around digital transformation and AI adoption — all of this is creating additional pressure on physician teams who are already stretched thin.

With these factors coming into play, physician engagement is not a “nice-to-have.” It is a backbone issue directly tied to workforce retention, organization health, operational and financial performance, access to care, and a quality patient experience.

These challenges are interconnected — strengthening one area helps to strengthen the others. The risk of inaction is big: further workforce erosion, rising costs, and loss of trust on all sides which our sector cannot afford.

Health care organizations have a real opportunity right now to rebuild the relationship between physicians and the systems they serve — a relationship focused on listening, partnership, and shared purpose. We have the data, the insight, and the operational levers to make meaningful change. Now it’s about taking action, building the structures that support a more engaged workforce, and ultimately helping healthcare heal itself.

Brooke Bowers is president of CompHealth, a CHG Healthcare company.