Psychiatric physician assistant workforce grew significantly in recent years

The number of physician assistants in the psychiatric workforce grew significantly between 2015 and 2020, according to study results presented at Psych Congress.

“The physician assistant (PA) profession is rapidly growing and may help address the need for more mental health professionals, particularly those who can prescribe,” Kasey Puckett, MPH, a research analyst at the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA), said during a virtual presentation. “We analyzed demographic and practice characteristics of PAs working in psychiatry vs. all other specialties.”

Puckett and colleagues obtained PA workforce data from the NCCPA PA Professional Profile and used descriptive statistics and bivariate analyses to examine the data.

Results showed growth of 82.7% between 2015 and 2020 for the number of PAs who practiced in psychiatry. Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida had the largest number of PAs practicing in psychiatry. Most PAs in this field reported satisfaction with their clinical position and report no burnout symptoms. Those who practiced psychiatry (43.1%) were more likely to participate in telemedicine and use telemedicine for 40 or more hours per week (9.9%) than those in all other disciplines (20.3% and 1.5%, respectively). Compared with all other specialties, those in psychiatry were more likely to work in a behavioral/mental health facility.

“Knowing the characteristics of the PA psychiatric workforce will contribute to quantifying their contribution to the overall psychiatric workforce and to better understand how PAs can help improve patient access to needed behavioral health care,” Puckett said.