New Forbes Article: NPs More In Demand Than Most Physicians

[RURALMED]

Why are PA's ranked 10th on the list?

 

"When it comes to what a hospital or health system needs to fill the vacancies in a medical staff, primary care doctors like family physicians and internists have long been the top need.

 

But climbing the ranks and jumping past many doctor specialties on the demand scale aren’t physicians at all. They’re nurse practitioners and physician assistants who are filling a critical role for the health care industry, according to national doctor recruiting firm Merritt Hawkins.

 

The snapshot into the U.S. health care workforce from Merritt Hawkins, a subsidiary of AMN Healthcare (AHS) comes as trends in insurance payment from private health plans, employers and the government under the Affordable Care Act emphasize keeping people well. The value-based care push away from fee-for-service medicine also emphasizes the outpatient care provided by nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) working with primary care doctors.

 

“In the team-based, population health model, primary care physicians remain recruiting target number one, but PAs and NPs are target 1A,” Travis Singleton, senior vice president at Merritt Hawkins said in a statement to Forbes. “You really can’t build patient access or patient satisfaction without them.”

For the ninth consecutive year, the family doctor was the most highly recruited doctor. Internists were second on the Merritt list followed by psychiatrists amid a nationwide shortage of behavioral health specialists.

 

“Combined, physician assistants and nurse practitioners were fourth on the list,” Merritt Hawkins said in its report. “Four years ago, neither NPs or PAs were among (the firm’s) top 20 assignments either collectively or individually.”

 

On their own, nurse practitioners ranked fifth behind hospitalists who were fourth and physician assistants were in 10th place, tied on the “in demand” scale with general surgeons. Advanced practitioners are more in demand than several specialties including general surgery, cardiology, urology and neurology.

Merritt Hawkins’ review comes from a database of more than 3,100 recruiting assignments conducted by the firm from April of last year through March of this year."

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2015/07/15/nurse-practitioners-physician-assistants-more-in-demand-than-most-doctors/

[ksmith10]

Because there's more red tape involved in hiring, credentialing, maintaining and supervising us..and often times more practice limitations or simply more nuances in the registration agreement (vs. that of a collaborative agreement between NP/MD) with which administration may be less familiar or less inclined to take on if there are plenty of NPs in the area. For instance, where I live, PAs can't apply for a DEA license until they've been at the practice for 12 months, which is a huge inconvenience for most SPs who routinely prescribe controlled substances and one of the many reasons why PA jobs in my area are scarce while newly graduated NPs have their pick of specialties and practice settings

[Joelseff]

Because there's more red tape involved in hiring, credentialing, maintaining and supervising us..and often times more practice limitations or simply more nuances in the registration agreement (vs. that of a collaborative agreement between NP/MD) with which administration may be less familiar or less inclined to take on if there are plenty of NPs in the area. For instance, where I live, PAs can't apply for a DEA license until they've been at the practice for 12 months, which is a huge inconvenience for most SPs who routinely prescribe controlled substances and one of the many reasons why PA jobs in my area are scarce while newly graduated NPs have their pick of specialties and practice settings

^^^this! Sadly...

 

Sent from my S5 Active...Like you care...

 

 

[Gordon, PA-C]

The guy who wrote that article is an idiot!

 

He's comparing ALL NPs across all specialties to family practice.  That is ridiculous! 

 

If this guy was legit, he'd compare NPs vs MDs in the same specialty, for example Family Practice NPs vs Family Practice MDs.  That's the only way to do a fair comparison.

[wjm7]

Yeah, these lists are relatively worthless.  It's great when we are ranked highly, because we can point at the ranking and say "look how in demand and great we are."  But even then I think the lists are MOSTLY meaningless.