Primary care physicians at Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham spend more than 61 hours weekly caring for a full patient panel, according to a study published Oct. 21 in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers analyzed EHR and administrative data for 406 attending primary care physicians across 33 clinics at the health system to estimate total annual time expenditures.
They found physicians spent a median of 2,844.3 hours per year — or 61.8 hours per week — caring for patients while working at a clinical full-time equivalent. This figure translates to a median of 1.7 hours per patient annually.
Physicians with certain patient populations — including those that are older, more medically complex or covered by Medicaid — had higher total annual time expenditures.
“These findings provide valuable insights for designing sustainable primary care roles and adjusting panel size expectations,” study authors said.
