SAN DIEGO -- The American Academy of Family Physicians wants to further study whether nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) should -- or would want to -- become nonvoting members.
The organization's late Tuesday chose to punt on deciding the issue of creating the new dues-paying membership category for NPs and PAs as debate of their role in primary care continues on.
The AAFP's Reference Committee on Organization and Finance reported that it believed the number of allied health professionals that belong to other primary care physician organizations is small and that "the implementation cost would be significant for the small number of members that join the AAFP."
They also expressed concern about the divisiveness of the issue for the physician-based organization, and noted the difficulty of tracking NPs and PAs to ensure they are working with an active AAFP member.
Ultimately, the reference committee recommend the resolutions be referred to the AAFP Board of Directors for further study. The Congress of Delegates agreed.
, told ľֱ the NP/PA-membership issue has come up before, but he couldn't say exactly when.
, of Hershey, Pa., the delegate who introduced the resolutions on NPs and PAs, said he wanted to provide the allied health professionals access to AAFP's continuing medical education (CME) opportunities.
"The academy has been founded on CME, and I think our CME is a high quality," Weida told ľֱ. "We can then start working together on developing solutions to the challenges that face patients in care delivery and patient-centered medical homes."
The head of the American Academy of Physician Assistants strongly supported the measure, Weida said. He added that he was pleased with the result of Tuesday's action.
"I did not expect it to be accepted this first time around because I know there is a split opinion on this," said Weida, a former Pennsylvania chapter president and former AAFP Congress of Delegates speaker. "But I think over time, the pendulum will swing as we realize the value of working together."
Talk about the role of NPs and PAs has increased as the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) delivery model has emerged. PCMHs rely on allied health professionals to help deliver care and manage patients' needs, while the physician is freed up to work on pressing care issues.
However, states increasingly have turned to NPs and PAs to fill the gap in demand for a primary care workforce. AAFP maintains that NPs and PAs must work in teams with physicians and not independently.
, told the Congress of Delegates in an address Monday that family physicians must work together -- not against -- NPs and PAs to meet patients' needs.
"Perhaps one of the most important aspects of this discussion is to recognize that ultimately the scope-of-practice issue is not a battle, it's not us against them, it's not good or bad, it's not right or wrong, even though this is often how the discussion is framed," Blackwelder said. "The truth is that each member of the team is critical and has important roles to play, but we are not interchangeable."
Blackwelder said his job was to continue this message in his year as AAFP president.