Burnout and Patient Referral Among Primary Care Providers in Veterans Affairs Patient Aligned Care Teams (VA PACTs).

Using the Veterans Health Administration's 2018 national provider and staff survey, this study describes the practice patterns of 1453 primary care providers for specialty care consults, program referrals, secure messaging, and telephone visits; and examines whether the practice patterns are associated with provider burnout in primary care teamlets. About 51% of providers experienced moderate to severe burnout and 22% had severe burnout. Providers who embraced all 4 practice approaches had lower odds of severe burnout than providers endorsing none of the approaches (odds ratio range, 0.35-0.39). Associations were weaker for providers with moderate to severe burnout.