Doctors unhappy with nest eggs, retiring later

The Great Recession is keeping physicians on the job longer, and they're not happy about it.

Physicians are less satisfied with their retirement funds and are retiring older than in recent years, according to the results of survey released exclusively to Medical Economics.

Medical malpractice insurance firm The Doctors Company studied its 46,000-physician database and found that physicians' satisfaction with their retirement plans has slid by 18 percent since 2006, while other colleagues in the healthcare industry reported a 10 percent increase in satisfaction.

Likewise, the average retirement age of an internal medicine physician was 62 years in 2002 but climbed to 70 years in 2009.