In “The Moral Crisis of America’s Doctors” Eyal Press quotes a medical educator: “We’re training people to put the patient first, and they’re running into a buzz saw.” Many doctors are upset that they do not have enough time to talk to patients, because of demands to complete extensive electronic medical records and productivity reports. Fights with insurance companies to justify procedures and medications for seriously ill patients also take their toll. It became apparent to researchers, that many providers were suffering from a condition known as “moral injury“ or “moral stress.” As with other professionals in chronically stressful situations, such as the military, medical professionals often witness conflicts between organizational demands and their core values and ethical principles. This can result in emotional wounds that may lead to leaving the profession. Since the start of the pandemic, one in five healthcare workers have quit their jobs and an additional 30 percent have thought about leaving.

Battling the Insurance Maze

A recent survey conducted by Morning Consult for the American Hospital Association (AHA) found that 80 percent of the 500 doctors and 500 nurses surveyed nationally believe that health insurer policies restrict access to care and reduce quality of care. Obtaining prior authorization for procedures and medications were rated highly or very highly burdensome by most providers. “Health insurance should be a bridge to medical care, not a barrier to it for patients. If policymakers are serious about expanding access and addressing the health care workforce crisis, then we must hold insurance companies accountable for these harmful practices,” said Rick Pollack, president and CEO of AHA in the press release.

Increased Workload Demands

The wide-spread adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) has led to improvements in quality of care, interoperability, and access to medical data, but it also contributes to increased physician dissatisfaction and burnout. One change brought about by the adoption of EHRs has been the wide-spread use of web-based patient portals encouraging patients to exchange secure messages with their providers. The COVID-19 pandemic led to drastic changes in the delivery of ambulatory care, including a 40 percent increase in patient messages requesting information and telehealth services, as well as a greater than two-fold increase in messages send back to patients by providers.

A July 2023 report in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association describes these dramatic increased time demands from physicians. They point out that in addition to this increase in patient messages both before and after the pandemic, female physicians received a significantly larger number of messages from patients and other providers than male physicians, and sent out a larger number in return. Increased EHR workload, especially after hours, when many physicians catch-up on their inbox, has been associated with increasing burnout over the past 2 decades.

Who Gets the Blame?

Unfortunately, many patients are not aware of these barriers and burdens placed upon medical providers in their ability to provide optimal care to their patients. The public assumes that it is the doctor who decides to spend only 10 minutes with a patient and spend half that time interacting with the computer; it is the doctor who is responsible for failing to get a procedure or expensive medication approved; and it is the doctor who is blamed for large and unexpected medical bills. Most patients and providers surveyed agreed that more transparency around insurer policies and practices is needed, especially regarding which services and types of treatment need prior authorization, and what policies are in place to make these decisions and how to appeal denials.

A Way to Streamline Your Healthcare

We created the RK360® Cloud Health Record App as a consumer tool to address and simplify many of the uncompensated administrative tasks that perplex patients and family caregivers in our current complex and often confusing health care system and health insurance industry. It is a valuable tool that aggregates scattered health information into the RK360® Cloud Health Record, which consumers exclusively own, control and share across the RK360® Digital Health Privacy Platform.

The RK360® Cloud Health Record gives patients and family caregivers a more complete picture of their health status than the fragmented patient portals attached to clinic and hospital health record systems. The RK360® App equips family caregivers and patients to own, control and share information with any U.S. health care provider without surveillance by or disclosure to third parties. Access to care is simplified by the RK360® App, allowing users to match with providers who fit their needs, schedule on-site visits, get telehealth consults, and exchange pre- and post-visit information.

Finally, the RK360® Cloud Health Record may improve the quality of care for the user. This is because the RK360® Record gives providers a more complete 360-degree view of a patient’s health than any one provider’s electronic health record system. By promoting data-driven health care decisions, the RK360® Record avoids needless treatment errors, encourages personalized rather than one-size-fits-all care and may, in turn, improve health care.

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Your RK360® Family Plan subscription equips you to:

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