Yes in some cases, says Dominic Carone:
Where I have a problem is when patients are unknowingly and essentially forced to see a physician’s assistant or a nurse practitioner. What do I mean by “forced?” Well, take the example of a patient who waits for months for a doctor appointment. The patient shows up and after waiting for a long time because the office is double-booked, is then told that he or she will be seeing the physician assistant or nurse practitioner.
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- Medical records and accuracy
- How are residents supposed to learn?
- My take: Mid-levels, health consultants, blogging
- When do mid-levels help in the ER?
- My take: Mid-levels, PCP summit
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{ 1 comment }
Mid-levels are being misused when they are used to make the physicians work loard manageable and predictable by haveing the mid-level take care of the urgent and more acute matters. Lives have been lost becuase of this.
In outpatient clinics mid-levels should be used for the rountine algorithym driven follow-ups while the urgent visits and people with unknown diagnoses should be seen by the people best trained to detect the serious cases.
In inpatient settings mid-levels should be used to manage discharge planning and following up on results–not the initial H & P or eval where subtle advantages in training in clinical diagnostic evaluation can make all the difference in the world.
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