The Impact of Nonphysician Providers on Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Practices: Operational and Educational Implications.

The numbers of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) are increasing throughout the entire health care enterprise, and a similar expansion continues within radiology. The use of radiologist assistants is growing in some radiology practices as well. The increased volume of services rendered by this growing nonphysician provider subset of the health care workforce within and outside radiology departments warrants closer review, particularly with regard to their potential influence on radiology education and medical imaging resource utilization. In this article (the second in a two-part series), the authors review recent literature and offer recommendations for radiology practices regarding the impact NPs, PAs, and radiologist assistants may have on interventional and diagnostic radiology practices. Their potential impact on medical education is also discussed. Finally, staffing for radiology departments, as a result of an enlarging nonradiology NP and PA workforce ordering diagnostic imaging, is considered.

The impact of nonphysician providers on diagnostic and interventional radiology practices: regulatory, billing, and compliance perspectives.

The numbers of nurse practitioners and physician assistants are increasing throughout the entire health care enterprise, and a similar expansion continues within radiology. Some practices have instead embraced radiologist assistants. The increased volume of services rendered by this growing nonphysician provider subset of the health care workforce within and outside of radiology departments warrants closer review. The authors evaluate the recent literature and offer recommendations to radiology practices regarding both regulatory and scope-of-practice issues related to these professionals. Additionally, billing and compliance issues for care provided by nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and radiologist assistants are detailed. An analysis of the integration of these professionals into interventional and diagnostic radiology practices, as well as potential implications for medical education, is provided in the second part of this series.

Expanding roles of nurse practitioners and physician assistants as providers of nonvascular invasive radiology procedures.

PURPOSE: To evaluate national trends in nonvascular invasive radiology procedures performed by advanced practice providers (APPs), focusing specifically on nurse practitioners and physician assistants. METHODS: Nonvascular invasive radiology procedures commonly performed by APPs at our 2 largest hospitals were used to identify procedure groups for national trends analysis. We mapped categories of services annually to then-current Current Procedural Terminology codes from 1994 to 2012 and identified national Medicare Part B beneficiary paid claims frequency using Physician Supplier Procedure Summary Master Files. Trends were studied for APPs, radiologists, and all providers nationally for 7 categories of service: paracentesis, thoracentesis, fine-needle aspiration (FNA), superficial lymph node biopsy, abdominal biopsy, thoracic biopsy, and abdominal drainage. RESULTS: Of 1,352 nonvascular invasive procedures performed by APPs at our facilities over a 1-year period through August 2013, a total of 1,161 (85.9%) fell into the 7 defined categories. Between 1994 and 2012, national Medicare claims by APPs increased dramatically for all of these categories: paracentesis from 0 to 17,967; thoracentesis from 119 to 4,141 (+3,379%); FNA from 0 to 3,921; superficial lymph node biopsy from 0 to 251; abdominal biopsy from 1 to 1,819 (+1,818%); thoracic biopsy from 0 to 552; and abdominal drainage from 37 to 410 (+1,008%). Overall, volumes increased for both radiologists and all providers, with the total fraction of national services performed by APPs increasing from 0% to 10.7% for paracentesis, 0.1% to 5.7% for thoracentesis, 0% to 2.1% for FNA, 0% to 1.4% for superficial lymph node biopsy, 0% to 1.7% for abdominal biopsy, 0% to 1.0% for thoracic biopsy, and 0.1% to 1.2% for abdominal drainage. CONCLUSIONS: Although APPs perform a relatively small portion of commonly performed nonvascular invasive radiology procedures nationally, paid Medicare claims for those services have increased dramatically over nearly 2 decades, and at a faster pace than that for all providers as a whole. Given the multiple hurdles involved in obtaining Medicare reimbursement, that growth indicates increasing acceptance of APPs as procedure service providers at the institutional credentialing, state licensure, and payer policy levels.