Medical Practices Look to Advanced Practice Providers to Help Boost Patient Satisfaction

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DALLAS—As changing financial realities force healthcare to intensify its focus on patient satisfaction, streamlined habits, and higher patient volumes, there has never been a better time to consider adding advanced practice providers (APPs) to a medical practice, said members of a panel session at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, which was held in Dallas in September.

“We live in an ever-moving target of healthcare,” said panel moderator Kristi Gidley, PA-C, a physician’s assistant, administrative director, and supervisor of advanced practice providers in the department of otolaryngology at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Under the Affordable Care Act, there are approximately 12 million newly insured people, many of whom have plans with high deductibles. That has created a “climate where the payers and patients are quite sensitive to the value and the cost of medicine,” she said.

APPs, who are physician assistants and nurse practitioners, can improve patient flow through the practice, helping to produce shorter wait times, greater patient satisfaction, higher numbers of patients, and better documentation that can lead to higher reimbursement, panelists said.