What is burnout costing you?  

 

 Most studies show that burned out physicians are about 10 to 15% less productive than your average physician. There are a number of studies that show that there’s increased malpractice risk, so one practice lawsuit can be $10’s or $100’s of $1000’s of dollars depending on your malpractice carrier or what happens to your insurance afterwards. If you have practice issues that lead to burnout, there can be increased risk based on call duty about 4% per night on the call. And even if you’re getting paid to be on call, it’s  maybe not a full equation that works out in your favor.

What about lost opportunities?

 

 Say someone doesn’t consider you for a job or a position, or for promotion within your organization into a higher leadership role because of your demeanor, because you’re burned out, or because you’re difficult to work with. What does that cost you?

 

What if there are disciplinary actions that force you to miss work?

 

You have to add in for maybe a week or a month, you have to add those $1000s of dollars into your calculation for the cost of burnout. And then from an economic standpoint, if you add all those together, it can be thousands of dollars. 

 

We want you to get help. 

 

Accessing care can also require some time off,  which will be useful for you. And then also the cost of the care, so it’s therapy or, or maybe court ordered types of therapy. Those can be costly, so it’s not as if there are no economic impacts for burnout. I think there are.  And please, I don’t want you to not seek care because of the cost, because that’s a useful cost. The cost of, you know, being suspended from work as a result of burnout is a cost that you don’t want to have either, but that is more of a result of burnout itself.

 

If there are short term costs for getting taken care of burnout from a cost standpoint, please do those. 

 

They’re absolutely worth every penny! I know every penny that I have spent getting it myself better on books, food, therapy, a better mattress and sleep, and following the things that are important drives me, that has been worth every penny times 10. 

 

Please think about the economic cost of burnout. What is burnout costing you? 

 

I want to make sure that you always remember that we are here, we’re for you, raise your hand, get help.

And finally, and you know, if you’ve watched any of these before you know that burnout recovery is for you!

~Jeff Moody, MD