It is important for doctors to properly address the legal matters that arise in relation to their career, such as contract matters. This is true whatever stage of their career they are in. Health law attorneys can assist doctors with dealing with the legal issues particular to where they are within their professional career.
One set of practice-related legal matters that an increasing number of physicians might be navigating these days are the issues that come up in connection to continuing to practice deep into one’s career. This is because, as a recent survey suggests, a desire to continue working may be very common among today’s physicians who are approaching retirement age.
In this survey, over 400 doctors from across the country were polled about their thoughts on retirement. The surveyed physicians were ages 50 and up. They came from a range of specialties.
One thing the results point to is that it is pretty common for older doctors to feel hesitant about retiring. There were a range of different reasons doctors gave for being reluctant to retire. The most common reason cited was that they enjoy practicing medicine.
Another thing the results point to is that many older doctors want to continue to practice medicine in some capacity even after they retire. Of the surveyed physicians, a little over half indicated that they would like to work part-time or occasionally during their retirement.
Doctors who are approaching retirement age make up a rather significant portion of the current physician workforce here in America. So, what trends are occurring among older doctors could be very impactful for the field as a whole. One wonders what impacts the prevalence of a reluctance to retire among older physicians will have on things like how big of physician shortage risk there will be here in the U.S. in upcoming years.
Source: FierceHealthcare, “Good news for physician shortage: Many older doctors don’t want to retire,” Joanne Finnegan, Aug. 1, 2017
