The Day-To-Day Tasks Physicians (Still) Dislike

If you asked your physicians what they love most about their job, chances are they’d say it’s caring for patients. Helping someone heal, restoring quality of life, or offering reassurance in moments of uncertainty, that’s why most choose medicine in the first place.

But if you asked what they dislike most? You’d likely hear a list of administrative tasks that take them away from patient care. Documentation, prior authorizations, billing conversations, and endless computer clicks continue to consume their time. The problem isn’t new, but in 2025, physician burnout is at an all-time high, and practices are under more pressure than ever to do more with less.

Recent reforms, such as the June 2025 pledge by more than 50 insurers to reduce and standardize prior authorizations, are promising. Still, the daily grind hasn’t gone away, and medical practices continue to juggle administrative complexity, rising denial rates, and staff shortages.

In 2022, we wrote about “7 tasks physicians dislike” and wanted to revisit this list and see how it compares to 2025.

Here are the seven tasks we have asked physicians to tell us what they dislike most in 2022 and now in 2025. 

7 Tasks Physicians Dislike Most About Their Job

1. Lengthy Documentation

Feelings in 2022:

It’s no secret that the amount of paperwork a physician must complete every day can get overwhelming—especially when it comes to patient notes. Many physicians find themselves taking work home due to the time-consuming nature of note-taking and documentation.

If a physician takes notes during a consultation or treatment, the patient may feel as though the physician isn’t paying attention. While this saves time for the physician, it negatively impacts the patient-provider relationship. However, if the physician waits until after the patient leaves to document the notes, the relationship between patient and provider will be stronger—but it comes at a price. This requires more time from the physician at work and potentially at home, time that could be spent with other patients or their families.

Ultimately, the physician fails either way. The physician must complete this amount of lengthy documentation at some point, and it’s up to them to either compromise on patient care or their time. This decision is weighted and unfair, which is why many physicians dread the amount of documentation that accompanies their job.

Now:

AI-assisted note-taking tools have become common, but physicians still face the burden of ensuring accuracy and compliance. Whether they type notes during a patient encounter (risking the patient relationship) or after hours (risking their work-life balance), documentation remains a lose-lose scenario.

That’s why many practices now rely on EHR-agnostic medical scribes and transcription services. 

2. Coding Patient Visits

Feelings in 2022:

Medical coding is an essential part of every practice. When done correctly, coding enhances patient care and enables your practice to receive timely reimbursement from your insurance provider. Coding isn’t always done correctly, though, which may result in serious complications for your practice. 

Coding in itself is time-consuming. Not only do physicians have to ensure the code they’re using is correct, but they also must verify that the coding hasn’t changed. Continued education is necessary for medical coding, as coding standards change at least once a year. Taking into consideration all the work a physician must complete in a day, they don’t have the time to verify these changes.

Now:

Coding continues to evolve annually, with new requirements and payer scrutiny in 2025 making accuracy more critical than ever. A miscoded visit still means lost revenue, delayed reimbursement, or compliance risk. Medical practices are more in tune with business KPIs and understand that if they can become more accurate and see more patients, the proof is in the bottom line.

Physicians don’t have the time to track every change. It was clear through conversations that physicians feel more comfortable outsourcing coding support now than in 2022.

3. Requesting Medical Authorizations

Feelings in 2022:

If a patient requires a level of specialty care, they should be able to get it immediately. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. Many physicians find themselves frustrated by the time-consuming process of requesting authorization for specialized patient care.

In most cases, a patient’s primary care provider (PCP) knows what type and level of care the patient needs. However, requesting a referral or authorization to a specialty provider through an insurance company takes time.  

This process isn’t always cut and dry, which makes it difficult for PCPs and specialty care providers to set aside time to request a referral or authorization. This process becomes even more arduous when a practice doesn’t use a digital referral management system.

While referrals and authorizations are crucial to improving the patient experience, this is one of the tasks physicians dislike due to the amount of time involved.

Now:

Even with insurers pledging to cut PA requirements by 2026 and standardize electronic workflows by 2027, practices can’t ignore today’s reality: specialty drugs, advanced imaging, and biologics still require detailed authorization. Smaller practices, in particular, struggle to adapt to shifting technology and payer variations.

Hidden Costs in AI or Automation for Prior Authorizations – In conversations with physicians for this update on sentiment, we also noted that they are concerned that, although there are now services claiming to use AI for authorizations, they are not transparent about the total cost of an “automated” solution. Most physicians and medical administrators do not understand that it can cost up to $ 5,000 a month to connect to a single insurance provider. So while AI/automation sounds good and is typically cost-effective, it is not when it comes to prior authorizations, where a trained prior authorization can cost thousands less per month vs an automation tool.

4. Extensive Amounts Of Computer Work

Feelings in 2022:

While the increased implementation of electronic health record (EHR) systems is a step in the right direction for the healthcare industry, it’s proving to be a struggle for physicians. Physicians often feel stuck behind their computers, and the rapid adoption of EHRs plays a significant role in that.

Think about it—when’s the last time you saw one of your physicians without a computer or tablet in their hand? Don’t get us wrong, these electronics are necessary to quickly add, edit, and access patient information. However, physicians continue to be frustrated due to the amount of time-consuming work required on their computers.

Many physicians feel that their job has become more about checking boxes and clicking buttons than about providing excellent patient care. Navigating through a complex EHR is no easy task, and it’s common for physicians to get stuck checking notifications and shifting between tabs.

While these difficulties typically stem from a lack of EHR optimizations and training, they only further contribute to a physician’s lack of time. In turn, physicians begin to form negative opinions about their EHR, making it one more daily task physicians dislike.

Now:

The tools are faster, but the burden remains. Many practices are still turning to EHR-agnostic support.

5. Explaining Billing Uncertainties

Feelings in 2022:

Sometimes, patients don’t understand the cost behind their care, and that’s okay. Patients shouldn’t understand every intricacy involved in their care—that level of knowledge should come from the physician and their team.

However, much of a physician’s time is spent explaining the level of care needed, the cost associated with that care, and how the patient is expected to pay for that care. Patient billing is a soft spot for many practices, and physicians commonly get caught in between the patient and the billing process.

While it’s important for a patient to understand how the billing process works, it takes time for a physician to explain this process. Again, this is a time a physician doesn’t have, and a task they dread doing.

Now:

Price transparency laws and rising patient cost-sharing have made billing conversations more frequent and more sensitive in 2025. Too often, physicians are stuck explaining deductibles, coverage gaps, and payment options.

6. Searching For Patient Documentation

Feelings in 2022:

If your medical documents are mismanaged, chances are your physicians are frustrated. When patient information is challenging to locate, outdated, or missing, it costs your physicians even more time. Locating accurate and up-to-date patient documentation is undoubtedly time-consuming, and it hurts patient care.

Without the correct documentation, physicians cannot provide the care they should otherwise be able to. This causes even more stress and frustration, not only for the physician, but for the patient as well. Physicians shouldn’t have to spend their time finding or correcting patient information, and patients shouldn’t have to duplicate information that has already been given. Ultimately, it’s a waste of time and a source of frustration on both ends.

Now:

Still a problem, believe it or not.

Misfiled, outdated, or incomplete records frustrate everyone involved. And with heightened compliance standards and payer expectations for audit readiness, proper document management has never been more critical.

7. Proofreading And Editing Patient Information

Feelings in 2022:

Taking patient notes is time-consuming in itself—but it doesn’t stop there. After notes have been entered into the EHR, physicians are usually stuck proofreading and editing patient information. Looking for discrepancies or errors in patient data takes up more time than you may realize.

Errors can negatively impact patient care and may even cause ethical or legal issues within your practice. More often than not, the only way to avoid these issues is through frequent proofreading and editing. While this task is necessary, physicians dislike it due to its tedious nature and the extra time it requires.

Now:

Even with voice recognition software and AI tools performing your transcription activities, errors and inconsistencies persist. To support this, a recent AMA study suggested that AI was leading to more denials because of inaccurate documentation. Proofreading remains a time-consuming task even with AI, but a necessary one to avoid clinical, ethical, and legal risks.

The Bottom Line

Burnout and administrative overload aren’t going away overnight, and the issues that physicians disliked in 2022 are still very much present today, even with the introduction of new technology. But practices don’t have to face these challenges alone.

For 25 years, DataMatrix has taken on the tasks physicians dislike most so they can focus on what they love: caring for patients.

Contact us today to learn how we can give your physicians back their time—and your practice back its revenue.