Bill to streamline Physician Assistants role in MD moves forward

MARYLAND –  After 3 years of being introduced and failing to pass, Maryland State Senator Mary Beth Carozza believes this will be the year that her Physicians Assistants Modernization Bill can pass.

The bill would revamp and bring up to date the PA system, making it easier for doctors to get more time working with assistance and remove barriers that are creating a workforce shortage in the industry on both sides.

“One way to address this workforce shortage is to make sure that the working relationship between the doctors and the physician’s assistants is strengthened and clarified. We’re working under an old system that limits what physician assistants can do. So what we’re doing, again, working with the physicians and making clear that the physicians are the lead on these teams, but enhancing and modernizing the role that they have as physicians assistants, which means more of my constituents, more people on the Eastern Shore would have access to health care services,” Senator Carozza said.

The bill currently sits in the Senate Finance Committee.