Senator Joe Pittman’s bills to help Pennsylvania retain more of the physician assistants it educates was passed unanimously by the State Senate yesterday and was sent on to the governor’s desk for his signature.
The two bills amend current law to eliminate the requirement for physician assistants to provide medical care and services under the direction of a physician, who will instead act in a supervisory role according to a written agreement between the physician and the assistant. They also streamline the written agreement to identify the primary supervising physician, and to describe the assistant’s scope of practice and the nature and degree of supervision. The bills also increase from four to six the number of assistants a physician may supervise and prohibits the physician’s employer from requiring him or her to supervise more than they believe they can handle.
Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Pittman said the covid-19 pandemic has forced changes in the ways in which health care needs are met.
Pittman says Pennsylvania is one of the premier states for physician assistant education, with more than 20 programs in the state, but that after they are trained here, many P.A.’s choose to leave the state because state law “makes it less appealing” for them to stay.
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