The American healthcare system has been struggling well over a decade now, especially in the wake of Obamacare. The entire system essentially turned into a shill for insurance companies to make more money, while patient care has suffered along the way. It is not just the patient care suffering now, though. Physicians are starting to feel the pinch of a broken healthcare system and are calling it quits.

New findings from a survey conducted by American Medical Association researchers found that physicians are quitting the profession of healthcare at younger ages, sooner than usual, and for some different reasons than in years previous. In the survey, the mean age of departing physicians due to resignation or retirement dropped dramatically from 57 years old in 2008 to 48 years old in the 2024 study.

Worse yet, the reasons are a bit different than just burnout or retirement after a long career. The reasons for quitting now are correlated to the failing American healthcare system and what it has become, which is essentially a patient mill. Churn out as many people as possible at the most benefit to the hospital or insurance company.

Health expert David Balat of Direct Care Alliance says one of the biggest reasons for the rise in quitting is physicians are not getting to practice actual medicine for which they trained.

"Nearly 60-percent of them are employed by hospitals, insurance companies, private equity...and they are being relegated to billing clerks," he says.

The doctors are signing off on forms and clicking boxes based on hospital policies. It all comes down to the classic case of American greed. Insurance companies, private equity and big conglomerate hospitals all want more money. That means churning out as many patients as possible, regardless of the care they need.

To make matters worse for doctors, they are essentially trapped into non-competes with their employers. Most of the time too, doctors are told when they are in school to just go work for a hospital instead of going out on their own. It has become a vicious cycle that, if it continues, could lead to a dramatic drop in doctor supply, so to speak.

"These highly trained, highly skilled individuals are being relegated to being data entry clerks...it is unfortunate for the state of medicine and healthcare in this country," Balat says. "The art of medicine and diagnosis is being limited on these individuals by the parameters set by hospitals."

In some cases, if a doctor recommend care for a patient outside of that hospitals network, that doctor can be sanctioned. The system has become overrun with authoritarian insurance companies and private equity firms who just want their money and will kill doctor morale to do it.

Fixing it is an issue too, because there are many problems. Federally, we limit the number of residencies int he country. At the state level, we have certificate of need legislation, which protects healthcare related businesses. But just giving freedom back to physicians would be a good start.

"We have got to allow for more residencies, create more residencies...we have to support independent medicine and direct care models," says Balat.

Balat adds there are many solutions to the problems. The issue is no one has the courage to do anything about it.

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