Average Administrative Burden for Physicians: Hours per Year

Published data support an annual physician administrative-work estimate of roughly 336 to 418 hours when the calculation uses 48 working weeks. The range comes from two different weekly estimates: 7.3 hours in the American Medical Association's 2024 national physician comparison and 8.7 hours in a peer-reviewed national survey.

Those annual figures are calculations, not measurements reported by the original sources. A defensible estimate must state how many weeks the physician works and what the source counts as administration. It should also keep physician time separate from staff time.

Annual administrative-hour estimates

The table converts the two physician-only weekly figures using three working-year assumptions. The arithmetic is weekly hours multiplied by working weeks.

The 48-week column allows four weeks away from regular work for vacation, continuing education, illness, holidays, or other leave. It does not assert that every physician takes four weeks off. A practice should use its own worked weeks when the result will inform staffing or capacity decisions.

The AMA national physician comparison reported a 57.8-hour average workweek for participating physicians in 2024. That total included 27.2 hours of direct patient care, 13 hours of indirect patient care, and 7.3 hours of administrative tasks. The AMA described the administrative category as including prior authorization, insurance forms, and meeting attendance.

The earlier peer-reviewed national survey found that physicians averaged 8.7 administrative hours per week, or 16.6% of their professional time. Specialty, practice setting, and the survey period differ from the AMA comparison. The two estimates should be shown as separate benchmarks, not averaged into a supposedly more precise figure.

At 48 weeks, 350.4 hours is about 8.8 forty-hour workweeks. The 417.6-hour scenario is about 10.4 forty-hour workweeks. These equivalents describe time, not the number of employees needed. Administrative demand may arrive in short daily bursts, require clinical input, or remain tied to a specific payer deadline.

What the estimates measure

"Administrative burden" does not have one standard time category across studies. Some sources count only explicit administrative tasks. Others group documentation, order entry, inbox work, or care coordination with EHR and desk work or indirect patient care.

That distinction changes the result. In the AMA comparison, 13 weekly hours of indirect patient care sat outside the 7.3-hour administrative category. Treating both categories as administration would produce 20.3 hours per week, but that would answer a broader question than the source's stated administrative figure.

A 2016 time-and-motion study of ambulatory physicians used another design. Researchers observed 57 physicians for 430 hours and found that 49.2% of the office day went to EHR and desk work, compared with 27% for direct clinical face time. Twenty-one physicians who kept after-hours diaries reported another one to two hours of work per night, mostly on EHR tasks. The study did not publish a single annual administrative-hours average, and its authors warned that the selected practices may not represent every setting.

The time-and-motion findings describe how work occupied the day. They should not be added to the AMA's weekly categories because EHR, desk work, indirect care, and administration can overlap.

Avoiding double counting

Prior authorization illustrates the denominator problem. The 2025 AMA prior-authorization survey reported 13 hours per week completing prior authorizations. That number covered physicians and staff together for a physician's practice. It is not 13 hours of the physician's personal time.

Multiplying 13 hours by 48 weeks yields 624 practice labor hours. That may help estimate total workflow demand, but it cannot be compared directly with the physician-only 350.4- or 417.6-hour scenarios. It also cannot be added to them unless the practice has measured and removed the prior-authorization time already present in the broader administrative estimate.

Use four labels when recording a workload estimate:

1. Whose time is included: physician, staff, or both.
2. Which tasks are included and excluded.
3. Whether the source measured, observed, or asked respondents to estimate time.
4. How many working weeks the annual calculation assumes.

These labels prevent a staffing estimate from combining unlike figures. They also make it possible to repeat the calculation after a workflow change.

Estimate your practice workload

A solo practice can replace national assumptions with a short time study. For two representative weeks, record minutes in task categories that are mutually exclusive. Useful categories include payer forms, prior authorization, meeting time, records work, referral coordination, inbox routing, documentation, and billing review.

Separate work that requires physician judgment from work that another trained team member may perform under written procedures. Do not assume that every EHR minute is delegable. Diagnosis, prescribing, interpretation, medical advice, and final clinical review stay with appropriately licensed clinicians.

Add the two measured weeks, divide by two, and multiply the weekly average by the number of weeks the physician expects to work. If demand is seasonal, sample a busier and a quieter period instead of relying on one convenient week.

For example, a measured 6.5 administrative hours per week across 47 working weeks equals 305.5 hours per year. If 2.5 hours per week are documented as rule-based work suitable for reassignment, the gross reassignment opportunity is 117.5 hours. Actual time recovered will be lower if the physician still reviews exceptions, trains staff, or handles escalations.

Measure the same categories after any change. The result should show whether work left the physician's schedule or merely moved into evenings. Our weekly administrative-hours page covers the underlying time-use evidence. The after-hours EHR statistics page focuses on work outside scheduled hours, while the physician work-week statistics page covers total professional time.

Frequently asked questions

How many hours per year do physicians spend on administrative work?

Using 48 working weeks, the AMA's 7.3-hour weekly figure converts to 350.4 hours per year. A peer-reviewed 8.7-hour weekly estimate converts to 417.6 hours. Neither source reports one universal annual average.

Why not multiply every weekly estimate by 52?

A 52-week calculation assumes the workload occurs every week of the year. Physicians who take leave, attend continuing education, or have non-working weeks should use their actual schedule. The 52-week figures remain useful as arithmetic upper scenarios, not as default estimates.

Does administrative time include EHR documentation?

It depends on the source. The AMA's 2024 comparison listed indirect patient care separately from administrative tasks. Other studies use EHR and desk-work categories. Check the definition before comparing or combining figures.

Is prior-authorization time physician time?

Not in the AMA's 13-hour weekly statistic. That survey figure combines physician and staff time spent on prior authorization for a physician's practice.

Can annual administrative hours determine how much support to hire?

They provide a capacity benchmark, but hiring requires a task-level study. The practice must identify which work is repeatable, permitted to be delegated, concentrated at certain times, and still subject to physician review.

Methodology and sources

We calculated annual scenarios from 7.3 and 8.7 weekly physician administrative hours. Each weekly figure was multiplied by 46, 48, and 52. Results are shown to one decimal place. We did not combine the estimates because they come from different periods, samples, and category definitions.

We used the ambulatory time-and-motion study to explain category overlap, not to create another annual average. We treated the AMA prior-authorization figure as combined practice labor and kept it outside the physician-only range. Government and National Academies resources supplied workplace context; they were not used to derive the annual arithmetic.