Cardiology faces an ongoing workforce shortage with significant implications for patients, as well as physicians and other providers already working in the specialty.
Here are 10 things to know about the state of the cardiology workforce shortage in 2025:
1. According to a survey cited by the American College of Cardiology, wait times for a general cardiovascular visit went up 26% from 2017 to 2022 due to workforce shortages.
2. Patients in the U.S. wait an average of 32.7 days to see a cardiologist, according to a recent report from AMN Healthcare.
3. According to the ACC, the shortage is most acute in general cardiology, as most fellows go into subspecialty training immediately after fellowship, resulting in the industry being “heavy on proceduralists and more advanced clinicians,” Ginger Biesbrock, PA-C, told the ACC.
4. This trend toward hyperspecialization stems from financial incentives, Ms. Biesbrock said, as physicians seek higher reimbursement rates. “At a fair-market value, the extra education usually lends itself to higher earning potential,” she said. “But our pipeline for patients, our front door to ambulatory practices, is general cardiology.”
Thomas Maddox, MD, chair of the ACC’s Task Force on the Cardiovascular Workforce, said that specialization is important as cardiovascular procedures become more complex. “But we need general cardiologists to manage the intake,” he added.
5. The shortage is overall representative of a supply and demand issue, according to the ACC. On the supply side, physicians face numerous barriers to entering the cardiology workforce, including years of training, “perceived and actual work/life imbalances” and increasing administrative burdens. Demand is also rising due to an increasingly older and sicker population.
“We’ve never seen patients this sick before,” said Dr. Maddox. The prevalence of chronic cardiovascular disease throughout the world has doubled in the past 20 years, according to the report.
6. According to projections from the ACC, the American Heart Association and MedAxiom, the ratio of cardiovascular patients per cardiologist is expected to increase from 1 for every 1,087 patients in 2025 to 1 for every 1,700 patients by 2035.
7. In 2019, 26.5% of cardiologists were 61 or older. By 2031, MedAxiom estimates that retirements, paired with the fixed number of fellows, would lead to a loss of 547 cardiologists per year.
8. Nearly 50% of all counties in the U.S. do not have a single practicing cardiologist, most of which are rural counties where residents are most in need of higher levels of care, according to a July 2024 report by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
9. A density of about 13 cardiologists per 100,000 was associated with the lowest rates of all-cause and cardiovascular and disease mortality, according to the ACC, but just 112 out of 3,142 counties in the U.S. had this supply.
10. Burnout is also a significant contributor to the imbalance in the supply and demand of cardiology providers in the U.S. One survey conducted during the pandemic by the Journal of the American Heart Association found that 59% of cardiology nurses, 46% of cardiovascular team members and 40% of physicians reported burnout. Between 23% and 45% expressed a desire to leave their jobs. However, providers were less likely to report burnout if they felt more valued at their job.
