Running head: PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO MANAGED CARE ORGANIZATIONS Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners: The impact if statutes limiting PA and NP were eliminated Natalie L. Burnett Kaplan University Master of Health Care Administration Program Abstract The purpose of this research is to explain what would happen to the level of completion in the physician services market if all statutes limiting activities of physician assistants and nurse practitioners were elimiintated. (Teacher Name, Date) demonstrate the value that a physician assistant (PA) can provide to a managed care organization. The increasing competitiveness of the health care market has caused managed care organizations to become more aware of the …show more content…
This paper focuses on providing a brief history of PAs and evaluating the profession in relation to the US health system values of access, cost, and quality. Finally, patient satisfaction, crucial to MCOs in an increasingly competitive market, is discussed. Physician Assistants The physician assistant profession is a relative newcomer to healthcare. It originated in the 1960s with the return of medical corpsmen from the Vietnam War who had military medical skills they wanted to apply to the civilian health care market. These skills were seen as a way to extend the practice of a primary care physician, divert less acute or complex problems to the PA, and manage the need for primary care services in underserved areas (Benjamin et al., 1999). The first PA educational program opened at Duke University in the 1960s. The advent of federal funding in 1971 allowed for expansion (Benjamin et al. 1999), and by 1999 there were 114 PA programs in the United States enrolling 4,080 first-year students (Dehn & Cawley, …show more content…
The Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant requires that each PA program provide, "…classroom and laboratory instruction in the basic medical and behavioral sciences (such as anatomy, pharmacology, pathophysiology, clinical medicine, and physical diagnosis), followed by clinical rotations in internal medicine, family medicine, surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency medicine, and geriatric medicine" (AAPA, 2000). Physician assistants are trained to serve as clinical partners to primary care physicians, handling routine office visits, taking call, and performing inpatient rounds so that the physician is freed up to handle more clinically intensive patient needs (Russel Johns Associates, 2001). Additionally, some PAs support physicians in certain specialty areas such as anesthesiology, radiology, neurology, and gastroenterology performing various levels of technical procedures based on supplemental training and physician granted autonomy (Grandinetti,
The physician assistant profession was created to improve and expand healthcare based on demands in the mid 1960’s when physicians realized there was a shortage of primary care physicians. Happening concurrently was an influx of men returning from Vietnam War who were well trained and experienced in addressing medical emergencies such as traumas. To help this Eugene Stead Jr, MD, of the Duke University Medical Center, put together the first class in 1965. He selected four Navy Hospital Corpsmen who had extensive medical training while abroad at war. Stead based his teachings on his knowledge of the fast paced training of doctors serving in World War II.
In 1968, American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) formerly known as the American Association of Physician Assistants was established in North Carolina by the first graduate students of Duke University Physician Assistant program. Since then PA profession has grown to tremendous heights. The mission statement of the AAPA is, “To ensure the professional growth, personal excellence, and recognition of the physician assistants, and to support their efforts to enable then to improve the quality, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness of patient-centered health care.” The physician assistant profession has shown remarkable growth since its first PAs started practice in 1967.
There is a noticeable gap in the supply for patients and demand for health care providers. Collaborating with fellow physician assistants, researching new ideas and focusing on new strategies for care in areas can help close this gap. Through my experiences, I have noted the need for support in patient care, and thus arises the question of should there be a requirement to enter the health care system through a gatekeeper. The overwhelming distance seen in the lack of professionals able to meet the demands of growing number of patients, eliminates the possibility of receiving adequate care. Overcrowded halls, overflowing rooms does not help balance the requirement for sufficient support.
Topic 1 In 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed in to law the Health Care Quality Improvement Act. The law was legislated to protect peer review bodies from private money damage liability and to protect the public from incompetent practitioners from unsatisfactory practice behavior and from moving without full disclosure of incompetent practice measure ("NPDB - About Us," n.d.). Human Resources department should make sure that they vetting the potential physician through the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB). The NPDB is an electronic information repository that contains information on medical malpractice payments, and adverse actions on healthcare practitioners that were found performing inadequate medicine ("NPDB - About Us," n.d.).
The primary value of the PA role is to respect the health, well-being, safety, and dignity of all their patients. To ensure that misconduct does not occur, PAs should always be professionally and ethically committed to providing care for each patient. By being sensitive to the beliefs and expectations of the patient, they should be able to recognize that each patient is unique and their type of care will vary. They are treating human beings, not a disease or
Pathologists tend to be the face of this field, as they are the primary physicians involved in formally diagnosing patients and kick-starting their plans of care. Pathologists’ assistants are allied health professionals that work closely with pathologists and other medical professionals, playing a critical role in health care. To become a pathologists’ assistant, one must obtain a bachelor’s degree, attend and graduate from an accredited program, and earn and maintain the proper certification. The American Association of Pathologists’ Assistants, AAPA, is the national organization of pathologists assistants. “It was founded in 1972 as a not-for-profit volunteer organization of allied health practitioners dedicated to the advocacy and advancement of the pathologists’ assistant profession” (The American Association of Pathologists’ Assistants).
This is because physicians get paid on a fee for service basis and thus their income is directly derived from the volume and value of services rendered. This way, a newly registered physician will be committed to increasing accessibility to care so that they can gain more practice and hence competence in their field of practice. How Physician Role Has Changed Over the Past 20
These APs are designed to help in areas underserved by medical professionals, such as rural American. Missouri was the first of the states to begin a licensed role for assistant physicians, directly in response to the number of students not placed with a residency during the matching process. It is important to note that there is a difference between an assistant or associate physician and a physician’s assistant (PA). What sets AP’s apart is the fact that they must past the United States Medical Licensing Exams and have 2 more years of school before they begin practicing. Since the first steps taken by Missouri there have been four other states to establish similar programs.
It is at the limits that healthcare workers anticipated to drastically increase primary care providers,This is a issue that states must soon, if not already,address. Some States Legislature are some what redefining of the parameters- the scope and standers of practice for several medical professions. Scope also let the healthcare know what a health care professional know what can and can not be done to a patient dependent on on that health professionals scope of practice (SOP), which is defined by state boards of medicine, boards of nursing, etc., The responsibility is to to prescribe, dispense and/or administer drugs, to sign evaluations and/or certifications (such as death certificates), to allow admitting or clinical privileges at
Even though patients and medical assistant have a special bound there are boundaries that have to be observed. The medical assistant fulfills the rules and maintains a professional, friendly, simple and respectful
Medical Office Assistant has many responsibilities. Medical Office Assistant is the heartbeat of a medical office or hospital. Being a Medical Office Assistant involves assisting the administrative by handling clerical and clinical duties. Some duties are filing medical records and maintaining the front office such as keeping everything organized and answering the phone. Handling final payments, medical records, scheduling, final management are other duties of a Medical Office Assistant.
The physician assistant occupation truly began in 1965 when a considerable shortage of physicians brought forth a breakthrough. At this time there were also many corpsmen returning from the Vietnam War with adequate skills to access surgical conditions but without the formal education. A man by the name of Dr. Eugene Stead then created a program at Duke University to give these people formal training and education. By the time they finished their two-year fast-tracked program these individuals would be equipped to provide medical care to underserved populations and rural communities under the direction of a physician.
Since this course would be my first PA course, it is very exciting. Throughout college, I have been taking courses not entirely relevant to the Physician Assistant major. I hope to learn many practical aspects related to physician assistance such as; learning how to take a patient's vitals, learning how to administer a full physical examination, learning about certain diseases, learning how to obtain and record a patient's history. I also want to understand the clinical process in more depth, learning and appreciating the art of medicine, as well as having a deeper appreciation and understanding about the Physician Assistant profession. I also want to obtain a very strong foundation on the Physician Assistant major before graduate school.
It is also the responsibility of the physician assistants to examine patients, as would a doctor, in order to obtain information about a patients’ physical condition. In some hospitals physician assistants could find themselves practicing medicine on teams with other physicians, surgeons, and other healthcare workers. They would examine, diagnose and treat a multitude of patients from a broad range of backgrounds.
As a prospective PA student and graduate, multitasking is a demanding trait. A PA student with back to back exams will have to balance between both subjects to succeed. Also, a PA having multiple patients will have to be able to juggle to treat each patient individually. Discovering