Still a New Day at AAPA: Q&A With Bill Leinweber
CR: NPs have been touted for significantly raising their public profile, while many PAs feel their profession has lagged behind in this area. How is AAPA approaching the public perception and marketing of the profession?
Leinweber: First of all, I think it’s accurate to say that the NPs have been ahead of us from a policymaker and a public recognition/perception point of view. But I think we’ve made some significant strides over the past couple of years with the PA profession.
We have been very targeted in our approach. We made a conscious decision that it was critical to elevate the presence and the positioning of the profession first and foremost among policymakers and thought leaders who have the authority to impact how the profession is practiced. So, much of our work has focused on building understanding and awareness among members of Congress, among the administration, among state leaders, elected and appointed officials.
We have undertaken a variety of initiatives that we have not done before: briefings, roundtables, advertising that we’re doing in targeted publications, such as Congressional Daily, Politico, Roll Call. Some of these ads have really made a difference in terms of the role that we were invited to play in shaping health care reform. We were very much at the table. We were invited to the White House continually and invited to meetings with Congressional leaders throughout the drafting of health care reform legislation. So I think we’ve made some real strides there.
We’re not ignoring the public. But in an organization with limited resources, it’s been our feeling and our belief that the best service we can provide to our members and the best return we can put on their investment, in terms of their membership dues, is to make certain that policies are put in place that allow PAs to really practice to the full degree that they’re equipped to practice and to remove any barriers we can that prevent that.
We are beginning to make some inroads, from a public perception standpoint. Increasingly, as debate and understanding around health care reform begins to trickle across the country, we hear from and are engaging more and more folks from the mainstream media, such as MSNBC, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, and others.
They’re seeing, from a legislative point of view, multiple references to this profession called “physician assistants,” and they want to talk to us. They want to know about the profession so they can inform consumers on how to access and utilize PAs.
So I’m really proud of the work we’ve accomplished there. We have a long way to go—and really that work will never stop. But I think we have been on target in terms of how we have focused our resources, and we need to continue that very strongly in the future.
CR: What other messages do you have for PAs and their NP colleagues?
Leinweber: From a professional point of view, I can’t imagine a more well-positioned, exciting, and thriving profession at this point in history than the physician assistant profession. We are really poised to play the leadership role that some may argue we have played for decades quietly, but I think [now] much more visibly and with much more recognition. I just think there’s a level of relevance and consideration about the profession that hasn’t existed before. That’s very exciting, and it bodes very well for the future of the profession.
Relative to our work with our NP colleagues, there is an enormous amount of work needed by NPs and PAs across the country and across the health care spectrum. PAs and NPs work extremely well together and often seamlessly on the clinical level, and my hope would be to leverage every opportunity we can at the national level to make sure patients have access to the best quality of care, to the best providers, when they need it.
