Category: FAQ

PAs are committed to team practice with physicians and other healthcare providers. Currently, most state laws require PAs to have an agreement with a specific physician in order to practice. These agreements were included in early PA practice acts 50 years ago when the PA profession was new and untested.

Today, PAs are still held to these obsolete requirements despite the PA profession being well established, highly trusted, and essential to the U.S. healthcare workforce.

In 2017, the American Academy of PAs passed new policy called Optimal Team Practice, which calls for laws and regulations that remove the requirement for PAs to have an agreement with a specific physician in order to practice, enabling practice-level decision-making about collaboration. Under the Optimal Team Practice framework, PAs will still be legally and ethically obligated to consult with and refer patients to physicians based on the patient’s condition, the standard of care, and the PA’s education and experience. Read more here.

There are more than 123,000 PAs who practice in every medical setting in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. They work in hospitals, medical offices, community health centers, nursing homes, retail clinics, educational facilities, workplace clinics, and correctional institutions. PAs also serve in the nation’s uniformed services and work for other federal government agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs.

PA LTC Jones Practices Protective Medicine at the White House

PAs’ specific duties depend on the setting in which they work, their level of experience, their specialty, and state laws.

Generally, PAs can:
• Take medical histories
• Conduct physical exams
• Diagnose and treat illness
• Order and interpret tests
• Develop treatment plans
• Prescribe medication
• Counsel on preventive care
• Perform procedures
• Assist in surgery
• Make rounds in hospitals and nursing homes
• Do clinical research

A PA’s medical education and training are rigorous. The PA school curriculum is modeled on the medical school curriculum that involves both didactic and clinical education training.

In the didactic phase, students take courses in basic medical sciences, behavioral sciences, and behavioral ethics.

In the clinical phase, students complete more than 2,000 hours of clinical rotations in medical and surgical disciplines, including family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, general surgery, emergency medicine, and psychiatry.

Read more about PAs’ work in various specialties:
Breaking Ground as Hawaii’s First PA in Rheumatology
PAs Can Become Leaders in Obesity Medicine

PAs are educated at the master’s degree level. There are more than 250 PA programs in the country and admission is highly competitive, requiring a bachelor’s degree and completion of courses in basic and behavioral sciences as prerequisites. Incoming PA students bring with them an average of more than 3,000 hours of direct patient contact experience, having worked as paramedics, athletic trainers, or medical assistants, for example. PA programs are approximately 27 months (three academic years), and include classroom instruction and more than 2,000 hours of clinical rotations.

PAs are medical professionals who diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans, prescribe medications, and often serve as a patient’s principal healthcare provider. With thousands of hours of medical training, PAs are versatile and collaborative. PAs practice in every state and in every medical setting and specialty, improving healthcare access and quality.

A PA’s education and practice emphasize patient education, preventive care, and chronic care management. Their generalist medical training enables them to provide a wide spectrum of patient care, allowing them to treat the “whole patient.”

PAs also make it easier for patients to get the care they need, when they need it. A 2014 Harris Poll found that 92 percent of Americans who have seen a PA, or have a family member who has seen a PA, said that having a PA makes it easier to get a medical appointment.*

* “Attitudes Toward PAs: A 2014 Survey by the American Academy of PAs.” The Harris online survey was conducted September 15–22, 2014 among 1,544 adults age 18 and older living in
the US, including an oversample of 680 adults who have seen a PA and/or have accompanied a loved one to see a PA in the past 12 months. For full methodology visit aapa.org/media.

AAPA Incident To Billing