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this is advocacy!!

 

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MAPA Memo to Secretary Sudders
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Secretary Marylou Sudders
Executive Office of Health & Human Services
One Ashburton Place, 11th Floor
Boston, MA 02108
 
RE: URGENT Request for Emergency Action to Remove State Requirement for Supervising Physician
 
Dear Secretary Sudders,
 
The COVID 19 pandemic has challenged the globe with its virulence and quick spread. The global community is facing the potential for significant challenges to their healthcare systems and this is only the beginning. At this time, we urge you make the below regulatory change to ensure that physician assistants have the ability to best respond during this time of national emergency.
 
As you know well, Massachusetts has experienced a rapid uptick in cases over the past week and this is predicted to continue to climb significantly. As all hospitals and healthcare settings prepare for this onslaught of patients who need to be cared for with COVID 19 infections as well as others who need any type of urgent medical care, the ability to be nimble and allocate resources is imperative.
 
The most valuable resource we have is our healthcare providers. We will need to have more providers than needed in daily operations to care for the newly sick, the recovering and the day-to-day care of chronically ill people. We will need to have replacements for providers who get sick themselves or are quarantined due to exposure. This is happening in increasing numbers every day at healthcare clinics and hospitals.
 
There are over 4,000 Physician Assistants (PAs) working in Massachusetts with the majority in the hospital or healthcare system settings. These PAs are, and will be, a critical part of the team and contribution to keeping the healthcare system in Massachusetts working. However, the current requirement of having PA scope of practice defined by the requirement of a supervising physician severely limits the utilization of PAs efficiently during a healthcare crisis.
 
In order to most effectively and quickly utilize the qualified healthcare providers we have, we must give hospitals and healthcare systems the ability to reallocate and deploy PAs to allow for maximum staffing when and where needed. An example of how this might work:
 
Currently most hospitals are delaying or cancelling elective procedures. This, combined with decreased inpatient volume as non-urgent patients are discharged, frees up PAs from their specific department work (ex: surgical services). These experienced PAs could be reallocated to the inpatient medicine teams, procedural areas, emergency, urgent care, or other teams in need of staff due to
increased volume from COVID or loss of providers from quarantine. These real-life situations are playing out in Massachusetts’ hospitals as plans are being developed for the unknown and for an undetermined amount of time. In the current state of PA practice, a hospital will need to find new supervising physicians for each PA it redeploys and have multiple documents signed and filed in order to comply with state law. This adds no value and squanders precious time.
 
We need maximum flexibility in our healthcare teams to be successful in combating this pandemic.
 
At this time, the Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants (MAPA), joins Rhode Island, Vermont, California, and other states, in proposing an emergency act that would temporarily remove the state requirement for having a supervising physician registered with the state that determines scope of practice. This change would allow healthcare teams to determine how to best utilize their staff when and where the demand is without the administrative burden to distract them and slow down care. All PAs work on teams side by side with physicians, NPs and other healthcare providers and this would remain the same.
 
Proposed language:
 
“During a state of emergency enacted by the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a PA may perform medical services as defined by CMR section 263 within a healthcare team including a physician without the identification of a new supervising physician.”
 
We respectfully urge you to make this requested emergency regulatory change in order to allow PAs to most effectively care for those across the Commonwealth during this emergency time period.
 
We are available at any time to speak with you further about this.
 
Sincerely,
 
Josh Merson, MPAS, MS-HPEd, PA-C
President, Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants (MAPA)
jrmerson@gmail.com
 
Sarah Christie, MPAS, PA-C
Legislative Chair, Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants (MAPA)
Slchristie1084@gmail.com; 1 (339) 221-0709 (cell)
 
Jason Parente, MPAS, PA-C President-Elect, Massachusetts Association of Physician Assistants (MAPA)
j.parente@northeastern.edu
 
CC:
 
The Honorable Charlie Baker, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Dr. Monica Bharel, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Massachusetts Board of Registration of Physician Assistants
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 I SO hate to make this crisis political - our first priority is ALWAYS patients - but this is a huge opportunity for PAs to prove ourselves as the most valuable untapped resource right now . The fact that we have generalist training and can pitch in where needed is what needs to be stressed here ., for obvious reasons 

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, PAinPenna said:

 I SO hate to make this crisis political - our first priority is ALWAYS patients - but this is a huge opportunity for PAs to prove ourselves as the most valuable untapped resource right now . The fact that we have generalist training and can pitch in where needed is what needs to be stressed here ., for obvious reasons

If the law keeps us from helping patients, the law needs to change.  Politicians have shorter memories than voters; we need to hit this NOW, because by the time the crisis is over, we won't be in a position then to help anyone in trouble NOW... and why would they bother going back and changing things after a crisis?

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