More Competition for Doctors
A bill to allow rural patients to be treated by physician assistants awaits the governor’s signature:
The bill allows physician assistants, or PAs, to treat patients unsupervised 34 percent of the time as long as their supervising doctor is on site 66 percent of the time.[..]
Without guidelines this year, the Board of Healing Arts would have required PAs to work with the supervising physician 100 percent of the time, effective in August. That would have been the most restrictive law in the country, PA advocates said.
Where did they get the 34-66 ratio from? Is that much safer or more protective of public welfare than 40-60 or 50-50?
As with the midwives, the opponents of the legislation are not outraged patients, but associations of medical doctors that don’t want competition. If rural residents don’t want to be treated by anyone but MDs, they can spend extra time and money for that. Allowing people to be treated by PAs gives them more options without forcing anyone to give up other kinds of medical care.
