Unnecessary regulatory burdens are often ranked among the top contributors to physician burnout, causing practitioners and practices unnecessary time and money.
The American Medical Association has identified six things practices should stop doing to eliminate physician burnout:
1. Stop requiring EHR password revalidation and two-factor authentication for approving or signing orders. One password is enough and no federal regulations require a two-factor authentication in an EHR for approval of a prescription.
2. Stop routing results of tests ordered by others to the EHR inbox of the patient's primary care physician. No agencies require that practices route all patient test results to the primary care physician, and sending results to multiple physicians can create a patient safety hazard due to confusion over who is reviewing the material.
3. Stop routing thank-you patient portal messages to physician EHR inboxes. They require no further action and clog up inboxes.
4. Do not document information that is not medically necessary. Regulatory requirements do not spell out the number of vital signs that must be included in an ambulatory encounter documentation.
5. Stop routing patient-event notifications directly to physician EHR inboxes. CMS says practices and health systems may develop internal processes to prioritize and tailor how event notifications are handled to reduce redundancies.
6. Stop asking questions about past mental health history on credentialing applications. Neither The Joint Commission nor the Federation of State Medical Boards requires that licensing and credentialing organizations ask questions about physicians' mental health history.