Indiana State faculty, students help pass new law boosting physician assistants [IN]
Posted almost 10 years ago by Nicholas M Perrino
"As the state's population ages and many areas continue to experience a shortage of physicians, mid-level health care providers, such as physician assistants and nurse practitioners, have become more important.
Prior to the new law, 'physician assistants were not as employable as nurse practitioners in Indiana because we had to have a lot more of our charts reviewed,' said Nicole Heck, an instructor in Indiana State's program. 'This makes physician assistants very employable in areas where physicians do not want to do a lot of chart review.'
The measure reduces chart reviews from 100 percent to 25 percent in an assistant's first year and replaces a requirement for physicians to review 50 percent of charts in future years to a percentage agreed upon between doctors and their assistants.
Indiana has lagged behind other states when it comes to rules governing physician assistants and the new law "allows us to catch up with other states," said instructor Tanya Singh. 'My supervising physician employs nurse practitioners in the nursing home and basically could not employ physician assistants under the previous legislation because he could not follow a physician assistant within 48 hours and co-sign all the charts.'"