with Former AAPA President Dave Mittman, DMSc, PA, DFAAPA
Post COVID Future for the PA Profession
Let’s face it, COVID changed medicine. This pandemic changed our view of everything from the government, supply chain, and the CDC. COVID changed the way that patients see organized healthcare, hospitals, primary care offices. We are now practicing medicine in a “post-COVID world” as PAs and, in case you are wondering what the future of the PA profession looks like after the coronavirus pandemic, this episode is for you!
5 Mistakes PAs Make when Asking for a Raise
When PAs ask for more money, they are leaving money on the table because of these 5 costly mistakes\:
Becoming a Profession as PAs
Professions self-regulate and as PAs, we’ve depended on physicians and the medical board to do that regulation for us. It’s time for PAs to grow up, break out into our own profession with our own board.
We will need to determine processes for credentialing, determining the required degree, and a regulatory board for Physician Associates. There is work to be done for the PA profession to stand on its own two feet, separate from its big brother the physician profession.
Title Change in the PA Profession
We’ve been Physician Assistant for many decades and recently passed movements to say that Physician Associate is now the accepted title for PAs. There are still some t’s to cross and i’s to dot on the legalities of changing our professions name, but for all intents and purposes, Physician Associates we are.
Although our name is changing, what we do in our practice will remain unchanged. We aren’t trying to increase our scope of practice, we will continue to fill the roles in medicine where we are needed, but with a new name!
Watch The YouTube Video here
Why do we need OTP?
OTP is a way to modernize the legislation that regulates Physician Associates. Our original legislation was written in the 1960s to 1970s without significant updates. Certainly small adjustments have been made over time, but essentially our legislature is over 50 years old and overdue for updating.
The one physician with a small private practice in small town America hanging a shingle outside of an old victorian home hiring a PA and the 1-Physician, 1-PA ratio is no longer the model we are using. Hospitals and healthcare systems alongside private equity investment groups own the lion’s share of practices and employ the majority of physicians and PAs in this modern era.
The laws governing the practice of PAs are outdated and no longer accurate. OTP is the modernization of those laws.
To read more, here is AAPA’s position on OTP.
What is OTP?
OTP, which stands for Optimal Team Practice, is the wave of the future for the PA Profession. Dave unpacks the 4 elements of the PA OTP Package.
- Commitment to Team Practice – with multi disciplinary teams across specialties and professions.
- Need PA Board – to regulate PAs so we can stand alone as a profession.
- Reimbursement Directly to PAs – for the care provided by PAs and be able to track the productivity and acuity.
- Elimination of Supervision and Collaboration – no longer will physicians be tasked for “supervising” PAs.
