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Dear Editor:
When you have a health concern, your doctor should be the first person you turn to for advice. And a doctor is the professional you expect is overseeing your care at the hospital.
But, without patients realizing it, they often don’t see a board-certified physician – a doctor who has spent four years in medical school and three to eight years of residency and fellowship for a minimum of 10,000 hours in patient-centered clinical training.
The professional you may see could be a physician assistant, nurse practitioner, or doctor of nursing practice – none of whom are physicians. And that’s okay because every member of the physician-led health care team plays an important role in ensuring patients get exceptional care.
But, what’s not okay is the confusion caused by the industry’s use of abbreviations in clinical settings. Our ID badges are an alphabet soup full of letters that mean little to the average Hoosier, such as MD, DO, PA, NP, DNP, CRNA, CNM – the list goes on and on. The same is true in health care advertising, showing everyone wearing white coats or scrubs, but no way to tell if you’re looking at a physician, pharmacist, phlebotomist or other health care practitioner. And it’s even worse when ID badges and advertising lack any license type at all.
That’s why, for the sake of patient safety, the Indiana Physician Coalition is calling on state legislators to pass a law requiring greater transparency in practitioner identification and advertising so patients understand whose expertise they are seeking and receiving.
We applaud the Indiana General Assembly’s focus on price transparency in the health care industry. The same focus on transparency should include the very professionals providing that care. Who are they and what are their qualifications? Visit INphysicians.org to learn more, and then ask the same question of your own health care team.
The Indiana Physician Coalition is an alliance of statewide medical associations and specialty societies advocating for physician-led health care that protects patients from harm, increases access to quality care and controls health care spending.
Steve Cooke
Noblesville
There are facts omitted. There are 14 healthcare professions that routinely use the title “doctor”. Patients have been confused for years. How many patients know a “Doctor of Medical Dentistry” is not a physician? I can tell you now and swear to it, no dentist has ever told me they were a dentist. Just doctor. How many know a chiropractor is not a physician when they call themselves physicians on their signs and use the title doctor? Yet, you say and do nothing. The fact that three professions are currently using the title physician in their language and on their national professional organization websites is fine, but Physician Assistant/Associate is apparently not? G-d forbid a PA working in a group practice you earns a doctorate for completing a Pulmonary Medicine Fellowship at a top Medical School, are you actually saying you do not want your patients to know that? Or critical care, or ortho, or emerency trauma, and they join an appropriate group of physicians. Seriously, it would comfort me to know it, The optometrist or chiropractor can call themselves doctor and physician, but the PA, UNDER LAW can not tell patients the truth about their formal education? I ahve nothing against them, but it seems a bit unfair. You would think you would want your patients to know that AT Stills School of Osteopathic Medicine granted a doctorate to your PA? I would if I were you.
All you are doing is pushing us away by making us different from everyone else. I believe you don’t care but you should. Higher education is not the problem, misrepresentation is.
Why not pass a law that says a PA or NP or ANYONE with a doctorate must disclose their profession to a patient-PERIOD. If not, they are fined and after repetitive attempts can lose their license. That would be fair. It would be what patients deserve to know, the education and title of all who see them, even physicians.
You will find, few if any PAs who want to be physicians or misrepresent themselves as such. Other professions do just that today, and yet not a peep. PAs and NPs are the culprits I guess. I believe 99% of us go out of our way to educate our patients about who we are. If not, see the above, penalties.
I believe what you are doing is unfair and you should re-consider. What’s good for one, should be good for all. All rules should apply to all professionals fairly.
That is not what is being proposed.
Patients are being put in a political tug of war where PAs and NPs will NOT legally be able to tell you if they are doctorally educated. A sin.