Why Canadian doctors are working 10-12 extra hours weekly on paperwork

From left to right in the photo: Richard Kimber, Chief technical officer, Jenni Bredin, Head of Product, Victoria Scott, Head of Growth, Eric Lalonde, CEO.
Photo courtesy of WriteUpp.

Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own.

Every evening, across Canada, a recognizable pattern surfaces. Doctors close the doors to clinics, see the last patients out, and face a consistent choice: stay behind or go home. Most choose neither. They head home, put children to bed, then log back in to spend hours charting, filling out forms, and managing paperwork unrelated to patient care. A growing number of Canadian healthcare providers are discovering that practice management tools like WriteUpp, which consolidate scheduling, patient messaging, and payments into a single system, can help address this administrative workload.

The administrative burden extends beyond simple record-keeping. Doctors write repetitive documentation because systems do not communicate well with one another. Doctors complete sick notes for illnesses requiring no medical expertise. Doctors search for lab results lost in fragmented networks. A 2020 study from Nova Scotia’s Office of Regulatory Affairs and Service Effectiveness found that a significant portion of physician time goes to unnecessary administrative tasks.

The human cost: Burnout and workforce strain

The concern runs deep among clinicians who spent a decade training for the privilege of caring for patients. Yet in current practice, the job involves less clinical work and more administrative tasks. When clinicians discuss why they are considering leaving practice, administrative burden consistently appears among the primary reasons.

The 2021 National Physician Health Survey conducted by the Canadian Medical Association found that just over half of respondents said they feel moral distress at work, the difficulty of being unable to provide the level of care patients deserve because time goes to paperwork instead of clinical work. This creates a concerning cycle: almost half of physicians also expressed a likelihood to reduce their clinical hours over the next two years.

Technology as the real solution

Some provinces have started addressing the issue. Nova Scotia responded with legislation and identified specific actions to reduce the physician administrative burden, such as shortening or eliminating specific forms and streamlining outdated processes to save doctors’ time

Electronic medical records were adopted to streamline documentation, yet many practices report EMR systems created difficulties: inflexible templates, repeated data entry, and interoperability problems. The solution involves using technology more effectively rather than abandoning it. Practice management platforms designed for clinician workflows can reduce after-hours charting and streamline invoicing.

WriteUpp exemplifies this method, offering a compliant all-in-one patient management system designed to give healthcare professionals more time and improve work-life balance. The platform consolidates notes, scheduling, patient messaging, telehealth, and payments into a single interface, reducing the need to switch between separate tools. The system features a mobile-first design allowing charting during or immediately after patient sessions.

The path forward

What makes this moment important is that Canadian healthcare faces concurrent challenges of access and provider wellbeing. Millions of Canadians cannot find a family doctor, yet the solution is within reach: reducing unnecessary administrative tasks that consume clinical capacity without improving care.

Patients waiting to be seen deserve a healthcare system focused on patient care rather than paperwork. Moving forward requires concrete steps: reducing bureaucratic requirements, investing in effective technology that serves clinicians, and ensuring that doctor availability remains essential to building a sustainable healthcare system.