Lingo check: What do you call a nurse practitioner and physician assistant?
What do you call a nurse practitioner (NP) and a physician assistant (PA)? No, this isn’t the start of a derogatory joke. Instead, it’s a good linguistics question.
At the Society of Hospital Medicine 2009 annual meeting last week, I spoke with NPs and PAs who referred to themselves as NPPs (non-physician providers), while the doctors in the sessions commonly referred to this group as mid-levels. What’s the correct term?
Pat Spurlock, assistant director of professional affairs at the American Academy of Physician Assistants said it is more accurate to use the terms NPPs or NPs/PAs. To be more specific, some physician assistants identify themselves as PAs in hospital medicine to better describe their role.
What terminology do you use at your facility or at other institutions? Take the poll below.
About the Author: Karen M. Cheung is the associate editor for HCPro, Inc., the healthcare compliance publisher, delivering news and information to the medical staff market with products such as books, e-newsletters, seminars, and broadcast events.
Before arriving at HCPro, Karen served as the news editor for Reviewed.com (including DigitalCameraInfo.com and lead blogger for CamcorderInfo.com), providing unbiased tech reviews for the WashingtonPost.com. Having trained with The Washington Post photo department and earning a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University, Karen has experience with news and commercial photography. During her time in D.C., she covered Capitol Hill and the White House for daily New England newspapers.
LOu Ann Brindle | May 22, 2009 | Reply
OHP’s Other Health Professionals, what I am starting to see and call them is Mid-Level Practitioners
Sherri Selesky | May 22, 2009 | Reply
We call those practitioners, “Dependent Allied Professionals” as they are not permitted to work independently at our facility.
Diane Lindsay | May 22, 2009 | Reply
Oops, the survey offers the option of “APP (Allied Health Professional)”. But doesn’t APP = Advanced Practice Professional, and AHP = Allied Health Professional?
Jeanenne Watters | May 22, 2009 | Reply
SPP – Specified Professional Personnel
Beasley | May 22, 2009 | Reply
We call them Mid-Level Providers. NPs do not practice independently here.
Vikki | May 22, 2009 | Reply
We call our NPs/PAs mid-level providers.
Pat | May 22, 2009 | Reply
In the managed care arena, we call them Allied Health Professionals and they are credentialed the same as physicians, as applicable.
Karen M. Cheung | May 22, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for all the comments! It sounds like everyone generally uses the terms, NP/PAs or Allied Health Professionals.
What’s the reaction from the nurse-practitioner/physician assistant community? Are these terms accurate? Is “mid-levels” inaccurate or potentially offensive?
Teddy Shepard | May 22, 2009 | Reply
In Oregon Nurse Practitioners are LIPs by Oregon Revised Statutes, but Physician Assistants are dependent. We refer to them collectively as mid-levels practitioners and are privileged as dependent or independent allied health professionals.
Malee | May 26, 2009 | Reply
Specified Professional Personnel (SPP). The term used by the Penn Dept of Health.
Donna | May 26, 2009 | Reply
We call our’s Allied Health Professionals and credential them the same as a physician but they cannot work independent.
Martha | May 27, 2009 | Reply
We call them Associate Professional Staff.
Beth Erwin, CPCS, CPMSM | May 29, 2009 | Reply
We call them Health Professionals, or NPs / PAs. Our nurse-practitioner/physician assistant’s have huge objection to the phrase mid levels – it lumps the NPs, who can practice without supervision, with the PAs who have to have supervision. We’re moving slowly toward saying APRNs and PAs, as this includes the CRNAs and CNMs.
mary friedman MSN, APRN | Jun 5, 2009 | Reply
I object to being called “mid-level” or allied health professional. I am a nurse practitioner with 30 years experience. I am not a mid-level, nor an allied health professional.
nancy o'rourke | Jun 26, 2009 | Reply
At our institution we are called NPs. PA are called PA. We (NP) have collaborative practice and PAs have supervised practice. I very much dislike the term “midlevels”. I also have more than 30 years of clinical experience and function very independently in an ICU setting. I am not “mid” anything and find the term politically incorrect, as do most of my colleagues.
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