Remove restrictions that hinder Tennessee’s physician assistants
Our hope is state’s General Assembly will permanently modernize the delivery of care
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in our medical infrastructure and highlighted how Tennessee's physician assistants play a critical and necessary role in addressing those challenges.
Early in the pandemic, Gov. Bill Lee signed an executive order to temporarily suspend some of the administrative requirements that often limit the timely and safe delivery of care to patients by physician assistants, PAS, and their collaborating physician.
More recently, last December, Lee rolled back similar restrictions to “relieve the capacity strain” on bedside care and staffing shortages in our state's hospitals.
This allowed PAS to assist with direct patient care in which they already have experience and training, but would have been denied outside of the Governor's decisive action.
Tennessee was not alone in tapping the frontline experience of PAS to address this crisis.
Nationally, three out of five PAS indicated they have tested, treated, and diagnosed COVID-19 patients.
Many of our state's medical professionals, including PAS, answered the call to serve where they were needed most.
As we move forward, our hope is the Tennessee General Assembly will see this as an opportunity to permanently modernize the delivery of care by removing unnecessary restrictions that prevent PAS from adapting to meet the needs of patients.
We realize that before we can rethink some of the outdated methods, it will require our organization, representing more than 2,700 PAS licensed to practice in our state, to define the often misunderstood role and experience of those PAS.
PAS are medical providers who diagnose illness, develop and manage treatment plans, conduct exams and tests, prescribe medications and often serve as a patient's principal health care professional.
They hold an advanced degree with thousands of hours of medical training, serving in the areas of family medicine and specialties like oncology, orthopaedics, internal medicine and cardiac and critical care.
Additionally, PAS are trained as medical generalists – meaning, their education and training are focused on treating the “whole patient,” making them the perfect providers to redeploy to areas where they're needed most, as we've seen during this pandemic.
PAS are already doing a lot in a variety of medical fields because their colleagues recognize that they are fully capable of providing high-quality care to patients.
Unfortunately, what's required of PAS on paper does not always line up with what they're already doing in practice.
As one of Tennessee's physician assistants put it bluntly, “We can declare a patient to have died, but can't sign their death certificate.”
PAS understand they are just one piece of the healthcare puzzle; and while they hold high regard for the depth of training of the physicians with whom they collaborate, we must ensure that collaboration is meaningful.
Tennessee's physician assistants are eager to continue to work with Gov. Lee's administration and members of the Tennessee General Assembly to ensure that what is asked of PAS in protocol reflects what they are already doing in practice.
This conversation should not create a power struggle among professionals. It should, however, prioritize all of us being the most effective partners for patients.
Katherine Moffat is the executive director of the Tennessee Academy of Physician Assistants.