Dive Brief:
- According to federal data analyzed by USA Today, Medicare billing records for 2013 show 15% more nurse practitioners and 11% more physician assistants received payments than the previous year for a wide range of care.
- Nurse practitioners are providing more psychotherapy for Medicare patients: more than 1,000 billed for 200,000 psychotherapy visits in 2013.
- Medicare payments overall in 2013 totaled $1.5 billion for 85,000 nurse practitioners (up 16% from 2012), $1 billion for 50,000 physician assistants (up 12% from 2012), but general practioner payments dropped by 7.6%.
Dive Insight:
What's driving this trend, according to USA Today, is the increase of non-physician caregivers in health care.
NPs t otaled 171,000 in 2013, almost three times the number in 1999, and PAs now number about 102,000. But a recent study by the American Medical Colleges predicts the physician shortage will reach up to 90,000 doctors by 2025.
This shortage, along with more insured patients via Obamacare, serves to increase the roles NPs and PAs in healthcare as they perform more procedures previously thought only to be done by physicians.These range from replacing chest tubes, performing lumbar punctures and assisting with complicated surgeries. They also help reduce costs.
Michael Powe, a vice president for the American Academy of Physician Assistants, said "each time a PA is used for the same thing (a physician would do), it's a cost savings to Medicare."