Governmental Affairs Newsletter Article
By: Mark DeSantis, PA-C, Chairman, Governmental Affairs
Scope of Practice Expansion wins Approval
Just before summer recess, the House and Senate approved our scope of practice expansion bills. It didn’t happen though without some political wrangling. We were cruising along just fine, having passed the house on a unanimous vote when suddenly we were picked up on the trial lawyers radar. Over the years we have managed to fly under that radar, but our luck ran out. Their group is powerful enough to cause a fair amount of havoc should they choose to do so. What caught their interest was the fact that we were asking for an expansion in our scope of practice, and that translates into increased risk. I did argue that what was being expanded hardly increased our risk of malpractice, but expansion of scope is expansion of scope in their eyes. They wrote to the respective legislative committees stating that they would block passage of our bills unless there was language placed in the legislation specifying minimal requirements on malpractice coverage for physician assistants.
All along, we have tried to keep this kind of language out of our legislative initiatives. But their request was supported as reasonable by the Medical Society and the Hospital Association. And as luck would have it, we had 48 hours to either accept minimal malpractice coverage limits or our bills would be dead in the water. This scenario takes me back to 1993 when we had to accept the “every third visit rule” or lose our proposed allopathic prescribing legislation.
The Governmental Affairs Committee and the PSPA board of directors contemplated the pros and cons of the minimal limits and in the end decided to accept the language in order to expand our scope of practice. The language calls for coverage in the minimum amount of one million dollars per occurrence or claims made. This was not a decision taken lightly by everyone involved. We understand that this may cause some hardship for certain individuals. Given the circumstances, the committee and the Board felt we had no choice other than to go forward. Since 2008 is a biennial license renewal year, the boards will require that we send proof of insurance at the minimum levels when we renew our licenses this fall.
One of the bigger headaches that our bills address is the ability to order physical/occupational and respiratory therapy. Their respective acts are being amended to allow them to accept our orders. The bills are included in this newsletter.
The Society hopes that our decision doesn’t create a great deal of hardship for our members. We act with the best interest of everyone in mind, but sometimes we are faced with tough decisions such as these. As our profession continues to grow and play an ever more important role in the delivery of health care in Pennsylvania, we are going to on the radar of an ever-increasing number of organizations.