Because, as more and more political groups encroach upon day to day physician tasks and practices, we are forced to do and write exponentially more per patient in significantly less time than before, while being paid less for it. I know it's trendy to shit on and whine about those mean rich stuck up doctors with their 8 hour work days and golf outings, but the truth of the matter is that there are countless absurd regulations piling up for nearly all specialties, in addition to the stacks and stacks of paperwork we have to fill out after work just to get insurance approval for the medication we feel will help you the most. Believe it or not, we want to help you and we don't want you to have to spend an arm and a leg to obtain care . . . but if you had any idea how much extra paperwork and how many hours are spent on the phone with an insurance company or doing physician "peer-to-peer" calls (where you have to convince a physician in an entirely different specialty than your own, over the phone, that the insurance company that denied an important and medically-necessary treatment is incorrect and impeding the quality of a patient's care), you likely wouldn't believe it. Every day at the end of my clinic, there is a stack of papers to go through and fill out by hand. A patient who has been on a health-sustaining medication for years just switched insurances and the company does not cover that med, so now I have to explain in writing why they need it and why the company should pay for it. Oh, but their first step is an automatic denial anyway, so I can 100% expect to have to get on the phone in a couple days to argue with an underqualified physician about this.

Some things have become easier with the advent of EMR, such as reading "handwriting" in charts if it's typed. But don't be fooled into thinking this is somehow easier for the doctor, because with each passing day, EMRs become more complex and less user-friendly, with additional hurdles, clicks, and stalling hourglasses standing in the way of documenting your visit with them or e-prescribing that medication you need.

There are so many things broken in this healthcare system, on all ends. If my signature or my handwriting looks a little messy, it's because my "8 hour work day" is actually 16 hours squeezed into 12.