A study published in May 2026 by American Medical Association researchers found the mean age at which physicians left clinical practice was 48.1 years — nine years younger than a comparable cohort from 2008.
Among the 521 respondents who had stopped practicing entirely, 44.7% cited administrative burdens as a prime reason for their departure. Nearly as many, 44.5%, said the work had become too stressful.
The backdrop against which all of this is playing out is a projected shortage of 141,160 full-time equivalent physicians by 2038, according to federal workforce modeling. Only five of 35 physician specialties are expected to see a surplus in that window. Psychiatry, primary care and OB-GYN — already among the highest-attrition specialties per a 2025 Annals of Internal Medicine study — face the steepest access consequences if current departure rates hold.
Satisfaction alone may be an insufficient metric of a physician’s longevity in a practice — which in turn impacts how practice leaders should think about physician retention.
Satisfaction is a lagging indicator
While satisfaction surveys can capture a physician’s attitude toward their job at a specific moment in time, they may not illustrate the ebbs and flows of satisfaction as a career progresses.
Pay and financial incentives used to be the primary recruitment and retention levers. In recent years, pay has become a smaller factor. Physician executives have told Becker’s that, increasingly, the most effective tools now are a strong culture, the opportunity to practice at the top of their license and access to modern technology — dimensions that a compensation package cannot address and that a satisfaction survey rarely captures with precision.
A February 2026 roundup of healthcare workforce challenges surfaced a related finding from Gallup research cited by Peter Banko, president and CEO of Baystate Health in Springfield, Mass.: one in two employees have left a job to get away from a manager, and leaders account for 70% of the variance in team member, physician and provider engagement. “People leave their boss and their team, not their organization,” Mr. Banko said.
‘Getting rid of stupid stuff’
For Patsy McNeil, MD, executive vice president and system chief medical officer at Adventist HealthCare in Gaithersburg, Md., the answer starts with a frank acknowledgment that the compensation race is over — and that organizations still running it are wasting resources that could be deployed more effectively.
“Too often, health systems either focus only on compensation as the driver — or ignore retention entirely,” Dr. McNeil told Becker’s in September 2025. “In today’s environment, a ‘compensation race’ is expensive and unsustainable, while ignoring retention undermines business outcomes.”
What Dr. McNeil’s team has focused on instead is removing friction. The framework she uses — GROSS, for “Getting Rid of Stupid Stuff” — is deliberately unglamorous. Whether through documentation aids or workflow improvements, the goal is to eliminate the administrative noise that distracts physicians from clinical work. Alongside that, Dr. McNeil argues for two-way communication that puts physicians inside strategy conversations rather than simply receiving decisions from above.
The financial stakes of getting this right are significant. Dr. McNeil cited data showing that highly engaged physicians generate more than $450,000 in additional patient revenue per physician annually — a figure that frames retention not as an HR concern but as a margin issue.
Restructuring before physicians start looking
The window for intervention is narrower than most organizations assume. A September analysis of a survey by Jackson Physician Search and MGMA found that 59% of physicians leave their first job within three years, despite only 27% expecting to do so when they started. Administrators are even further off: 69% expect new physicians to stay six or more years — more than double the actual retention reality. When physicians in the survey explained why they left, 45% cited leadership or administration issues as the top reason, more than any other factor. Only 15% of medical groups have a formal physician retention plan.
The risk doesn’t flatten after the early years. Research suggests mid-career surgeons are more likely to leave clinical practice than those with more than 15 years or less than nine years of experience, according to a study published May 20 in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Organizations that focus retention efforts only on recruitment or only on late-career physicians miss the cohort in between that is quietly approaching its own inflection point.
Technology is emerging as one structural lever for closing that gap. AdventHealth’s deployment of ambient AI documentation tools to nearly 2,000 physicians and advanced practice providers found that 86% of users reported less burnout and 80% reported a better patient experience. Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, S.D., reported that after less than a year of ambient AI use, 88% of clinicians said it reduced burnout or fatigue. The common thread in both cases is administrative burden reduction — the same driver that the AMA data identified as the top reason physicians are leaving clinical practice nine years ahead of schedule.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
