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Previous HCE and pay as a PA


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I am in school to be a dietitian but have chosen to further my education and become a PA.

 

I am wondering if being an RD would increase my pay as a PA, or if i should forgo the whole costly dietetic internship and just focus on other HCE.

 

If you are a primary care PA and you are consulting a patient, the patient can also receive dietary health advice at the same time.  In a perfect world I would assume this would increase pay.

 

In your experience how have you seen previous healthcare experience influence pay as a PA?

 
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From what I've heard, direct, relevant, hard to get experience may make one either more rapidly hired or better compensated, or perhaps both.  That's thinks like former scrub tech in surgery, former RT in critical care, former paramedic in EM, not things like former dietician in primary care.

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From what I've heard, direct, relevant, hard to get experience may make one either more rapidly hired or better compensated, or perhaps both.  That's thinks like former scrub tech in surgery, former RT in critical care, former paramedic in EM, not things like former dietician in primary care.

Is prior HCE in emergency care as you listed favored above all else? Even in fields like dermatology and primary care?  Is it favored even more so than someone working in a derm office or primary care office?

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Depends on how much experience you actually have - if you're still in school you don't have any experience, just another degree. Whether or not that translates into higher pay or an easier hiring process depends entirely on how you're able to sell it. My HCE made me confident and competent in a healthcare setting --> I looked better to preceptors --> more job offers. The offer I took was from a company that valued experience and I ended up with an extra $7K starting salary for it.

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Is prior HCE in emergency care as you listed favored above all else? Even in fields like dermatology and primary care?  Is it favored even more so than someone working in a derm office or primary care office?

Not that I'm aware of, no...  EM isn't exceptionally relevant to non walk-in primary care.  Being an EMT is better experience for primary care than some other health care jobs, but not as relevant as being a primary care back office MA, for example.

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Everyone asks about my experience (Military Medic, Private Contractor w/6 tours), some are frightened by the experience and some have offered me more than what they were advertising.  I do a lot of locums and some places like procedure heavy PAs, the corrections gigs don't worry about you being afraid and quitting after an hour.  I think it depends on what your background is; my best friend is a Family Practice Doc in a medium sized town in Texas for a small hospital and every single PA she has wanted to hire has been turned down by the administrators because they have prior experience.  They have given her 3 new grads in the past year and all have quit.  She's not hard to work for, but the clinic administrator wants people that he can push around and he feels that experienced PAs will push back.

 

This is a could be an interesting string of experiences

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