How much do PAs and NPs add to a practice?

[ValleyGuy]

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Hi all,
I'm an OMS III and am currently doing a rotation in Family Medicine and loving it. The practice is located in a medium sized town of about 70k and a surrounding area of about 1 million people within a 30 minute driving radius. Along with the physician, there are 2 full-time PAs and 1 part-time PA for the night clinic. Since we are in a slow season (summer), total patients seen each day is roughly around 75-100. The question I have is how much value does a PA add to a practice, specifically in billing, earnings, and collections? For instance, say each PA has a salary of around 120k, how much are they bringing in for their practice (and the owners)? I know this is an individualized question and that every practice situation is different, however, what have you seen and heard? Thanks!

 

[----------12c]

No!!!! Please just no. In all seriousness we don't need those bishes

 

[M12B]

This is only one example, and not sure how well it correlates to Family Medicine, but it's all I've experienced.

I used to work in the billing office of a private practice of orthopedic surgeons. One of our surgeons worked with a PA. The Dr. and PA had worked out what seemed to be a very beneficial schedule for both his practice and his patients.

He was in clinic with his PA basically 3 days/week. Having the supervising physician present in the office suite means that the services rendered by the PA can be billed incident to the physician, thus receiving higher reimbursement. So if the Dr. saw 30 patients in a day and his PA saw 20 then that's a total of 50 for his practice for the day (beneficial).

On the fourth day of the week, he would schedule all of the surgeries for which he did not need an assist. While he was in the OR all day, his PA was in clinic seeing patients (without him in the suite everything must be billed under the PA and thus has a lower reimbursement, but it's still more patients being seen and more services being billed while the Dr. is otherwise tied up in the OR). Additionally, this provided another additional clinic day for his patients to be seen in case of post-op complications, accidents, injuries etc (total of 4 instead of 3, beneficial)

Finally the fifth day of the week he would schedule all of the surgeries that require an assist, and of course his PA was his assist allowing for the practice to bill both the primary surgeon services AND the assistant services (with appropriate modifiers of course) rather than outsourcing the assist to another provider outside of the practice or at the hospital/surgery center. (Beneficial)

Ultimately it worked great for him and obviously the benefits in increased reimbursement, larger patient base, and increased patient care capacity outweighed the need for him to pay his PA's salary. I think it's a wonderful inter-professional relationship!

 

[slopes23]

This is only one example, and not sure how well it correlates to Family Medicine, but it's all I've experienced.

I used to work in the billing office of a private practice of orthopedic surgeons. One of our surgeons worked with a PA. The Dr. and PA had worked out what seemed to be a very beneficial schedule for both his practice and his patients.

He was in clinic with his PA basically 3 days/week. Having the supervising physician present in the office suite means that the services rendered by the PA can be billed incident to the physician, thus receiving higher reimbursement. So if the Dr. saw 30 patients in a day and his PA saw 20 then that's a total of 50 for his practice for the day (beneficial).

On the fourth day of the week, he would schedule all of the surgeries for which he did not need an assist. While he was in the OR all day, his PA was in clinic seeing patients (without him in the suite everything must be billed under the PA and thus has a lower reimbursement, but it's still more patients being seen and more services being billed while the Dr. is otherwise tied up in the OR). Additionally, this provided another additional clinic day for his patients to be seen in case of post-op complications, accidents, injuries etc (total of 4 instead of 3, beneficial)

Finally the fifth day of the week he would schedule all of the surgeries that require an assist, and of course his PA was his assist allowing for the practice to bill both the primary surgeon services AND the assistant services (with appropriate modifiers of course) rather than outsourcing the assist to another provider outside of the practice or at the hospital/surgery center. (Beneficial)

Ultimately it worked great for him and obviously the benefits in increased reimbursement, larger patient base, and increased patient care capacity outweighed the need for him to pay his PA's salary. I think it's a wonderful inter-professional relationship!

Thanks for the insight. Do you or does anyone else have any general idea of how much net profit they bring to the practice. E.g. The PA makes 120k but brings in 200k in billables so they bring an 80k profit increase to the practice (this is just a simple example).

Obviously it's all practice specific but sharing is caring.