New Managed Care Study Findings Have Been Reported by Researchers at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (National Analysis of Trends and Factors Associated with Surgeon Attrition in the US): Managed Care

2026 JUN 03 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A new study on Managed Care is now available. According to news reporting originating from Columbus, Ohio, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Surgeon attrition threatens access to complex and time-sensitive operative care, but specialty-specific and career-stage patterns remain poorly defined. We evaluated national trends and predictors of attrition from active clinical surgical practice.”

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, “We conducted a retrospective longitudinal cohort study linking Medicare Physician and Other Practitioners Public Use Files (2013-2023) to the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System using National Provider Identifiers. Surgeons billing Medicare Part B across 19 specialties were included. Attrition was defined as the first year followed by three consecutive years with <50 evaluation and management services. Kaplan-Meier methods estimated cumulative attrition; multivariable Cox regression evaluated associations with specialty, sex, years in practice, U.S. Census region, and rural versus urban location. Among 224,629 surgeons (1,722,692 surgeon-year observations), 15,753 exited active practice over a median 8 years (IQR 6-8), yielding cumulative attrition of 9.7%. Annual attrition was 1.5-1.7% from 2013-2018, peaked at 2.5% (n=2,977) in 2019, and was 1.3% (n=1,462) in 2020. Five-year cumulative attrition reached 25.1% in oral and maxillofacial surgery, 23.2% in obstetrics and gynecology, and 19.3% in plastic surgery. In adjusted analyses, surgeons 10-14 years in practice had more than double the hazard of attrition versus 5-9 years (hazard ratio [HR] 2.58, 95% CI 2.48-2.68), whereas <5 years (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.87-0.96) and 15-19 years (HR 0.19, 95% CI 0.13-0.27) had lower hazards. Oral and maxillofacial surgery (HR 2.64, 95% CI 2.43-2.86) and obstetrics and gynecology (HR 2.23, 95% CI 2.16-2.30) demonstrated the highest specialty-specific hazards. Female sex was not associated with attrition (HR 0.99, 95% CI 0.97-1.01). Nearly one in ten surgeons exited active practice over 8 years, with disproportionate losses among mid-career and select subspecialty surgeons.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Targeted retention strategies are needed to sustain the US surgical workforce.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: National Analysis of Trends and Factors Associated with Surgeon Attrition in the US. Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 2026. Journal of the American College of Surgeons can be contacted at: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Two Commerce Sq, 2001 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Journal of the American College of Surgeons - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-the-american-college-of-surgeons/)

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Odysseas P. Chatzipanagiotou, Dept. of Surgery, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and James Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, OH. Additional authors for this research include Abdulaziz Elemosho, Meher Angez, Jeffrey E. Janis and Timothy M. Pawlik.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1097/xcs.0000000000001905. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Publisher contact information for the Journal of the American College of Surgeons is: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Two Commerce Sq, 2001 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19103, USA.

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