Editor's note: This article was submitted in response to a previous op-ed, titled NPs/PAs 'Just as Effective' as Physicians? I Don't Think So, appearing on ľֱ in August.
The physician shortage is getting worse. Wait times for patients are increasing almost universally. Access to care is uneven across the country. There are no easy answers to these challenges, but physician assistants (PAs) cannot be overlooked for their abilities to provide fast, effective routine care for patients.
The facts show that patients win when they have access to PAs. A found that 93% of patients regard PAs as trusted health care providers and 91% believe PAs improve the quality of healthcare. The same poll found that 92% of patients believe that having a PA makes it easier to get a medical appointment.
PAs in no way seek to replace physicians or to devalue their expertise. In general practice, PAs and leading physicians work in tandem to provide the best possible care to patients across the country. PAs greatly respect physicians and other senior medical professionals and seek to collaborate with them as valuable members of a multi-disciplinary health care team in ultimate service to their patients.
The role of the PA was born out of the physician profession. Certified PAs are educated in the medical model through a rigorous curriculum that includes both didactic (classroom) and direct patient-care clinical training. PA programs consist of 27 months (3 academic years) of academic classes after completing a bachelor's degree with coursework in pre-med science classes. Furthermore, students are typically required to possess on average, three years of health care experience before they're admitted to a PA program; this could be working as EMTs, laboratory technicians, radiologic technicians, paramedics, nurses, or phlebotomists before beginning PA school.
This robust education typically amounts to 10 years of training/experience in the medical field, not counting the required 2,000 hours of clinical rotations in family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, pediatrics, general surgery, emergency medicine, and psychiatry. To maintain certification, each PA must complete 100 hours of continuing medical education (CME) every two years and take a every 10 years.
This dutiful, ongoing education creates credentialed PAs who are confident and eager to serve the patients of their community. Certified PAs can indeed be just as effective as physicians, delivering comparable patient care while cutting costs.
This conclusion was affirmed by a recent article, which found that the quality of diabetes care in the Veterans Affairs healthcare system did not differ by primary care provider type, and suggested that nurse practitioners (NPs) and PAs can effectively manage primary care for medically complex patients without increasing total care costs. Similarly, a study published in found that NP and PA care was largely comparable to that by primary care physicians in health centers. Findings further showed that patients who had visited with a PA received more health education and counseling services compared with visits to primary care physicians.
None of this takes away from physicians' depth of training and experience, which makes them uniquely suited to many healthcare activities, especially those of great complexity or irregularity. Well educated, clinically trained and high-performing certified PAs free physicians to focus on the areas where they make the most impact.
Let us not take solutions off the table for improving the American healthcare system. And let us not underestimate the role PAs can play in an effective delivery system that puts care and patients first.
Dawn Morton-Rias, EdD, PA-C, is president and CEO of the.