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Show Me the Money!
Let's Talk Salary Negotiation, AI in Healthcare, and Financial Pro-Tips for New (and Seasoned) Graduates!
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In This Edition:
A Startling Trend in Nursing Decline
AI in Healthcare
Know Your Worth - Understanding RVUs and Medicare Reimbursement
Secrets Nobody Tells You as a New Graduate
Meet Shayne Foley, Inspirational Entrepreneur and Overall Awesome Resource
Demystifying Last Week’s Clinical Conundrum
🩺 APP Trending News
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A Startling Trend in Nursing Decline
A recent study reports an alarming 3.3% decline in the U.S. nursing workforce during the past 2 years. The culprit? Unsurprisingly, burnout and stress due to increased workloads. Time for some quick policy interventions before we have a crisis!
AI in Healthcare
A buzzworthy study published earlier this year reported how ChatGPT (an artificial intelligence aka AI chatbot) passed the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), serving to inspire a number of articles and some chuckle worthy memes. In all seriousness, AI may actually bring some positive changes to healthcare. (Think patient record summaries). Even the AMA has their eye on the subject.
⚙️ The More You Know
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Show Me the Money!
Inflation continues to rise but it seems our salaries in the healthcare field remain capped despite increasing workloads and responsibility/autonomy. Further, APP salaries vary significantly by state. Some boast low cost of living or high quality of living as reasons to low-ball salaries. It is the writer’s opinion that if APPs are accepting under market salaries, it affects our profession as a whole. We would like to share some basics this week to help you know your worth and objectively negotiate salaries & raises. Still unsure? Speak with a career coach.
Understanding RVUs and Medicare Reimbursement Basics
CMS (Medicare) sets the standard for how much they pay ‘physicians.’ The relative value unit aka (RVU) measures the amount of doctors’ work by tying it to a CPT code. Here is a basic video that includes case examples. We also included a resource below from the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC). They break down the basics for those of you needing to understand how much your practice is receiving for your services. Now you can ask your billing dept for your record of billing (and reimbursement) to get an idea of how much you are making for them! New grad? Estimate your net worth by asking what your productivity expectation will be (i.e. how many patients per day seen). Another helpful tool is the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule Look-Up Tool.
Know Your Worth.
Our mutual professional organizations are an excellent resource and publish yearly salary updates as well as salary negotiation tips and tricks. The AANP has excellent advice for negotiating salaries, and the AAPA provides annual guides for reimbursement and regulations and compliance to help avoid regulatory and accrediting violations while demonstrating PA value.
💡Inspiration for Aspirations
APP Entrepreneur Spotlight:
Meet Shayne Foley, MS, PA-C, Educator, Entrepreneur, Mentor, & Co-Founder of The PA Blueprint
Shayne Foley, MS, PA-C
Shayne Foley is a certified and full-time PA with 10 years of practice under his belt. Shayne has worked in internal medicine, urgent care and currently family medicine. He is involved in PA education as an adjunct faculty member, preceptor and mentor. In an effort to expand his impact on the profession, he co-founded The PA Blueprint, LLC, whose mission is to provide career education to current and future PAs. They have worked with 30 PA programs around the country, and their work has been featured on AAPA’s Career Central, as well as multiple PA-related podcasts and blogs. Shayne has established himself as an important contributor to the PA profession through his teaching, writing, and online presence, and is passionate about moving the profession forward.
Relevant to all APPs (NPs & PAs) this week, this “career blueprint” serves an excellent resource for new and experienced grads. The PA Blueprint covers financial topics, such as student loan repayment, retirement, and negotiation of PA salary. Also, it gives insights into [PA] burnout (think sabbatical) and navigating your work environment. We get straight to the point with hot topics we want to share.
Q: What is the number one piece of financial advice you would give new graduates?
A: Get organized. Have a system to track your student loan debt and repayments, monitor your budgeting, track your net worth, automate credit card payments and hopefully a system to leverage credit card deals. There are tons of resources out there to put most of this information into one spot, including Personal Capital (now Empower) and others. It'll take a little bit of legwork upfront to set something like this up, but it's well worth it. It'll save your ‘future self’ time, money and energy. You will be less likely to make a bad financial move, at least out of ignorance.
Q: What was your inspiration for writing this book and how did you get started?
A: Jordan Fisher and I saw a massive educational gap within the transition from PA program to practice, so we decided to help fill it. PAs all drink from that proverbial fire-hydrant with medical knowledge, but learn very little about the career side of things during PA school. There was no excellent resource to learn the basics and beyond about student loan repayment, investing, burnout and other vital aspects of the PA career, so The PA Blueprint is our way of giving that to our community. We started our journey by writing our flagship eBook with supporting presentations to PA programs, and have grown to offer webinars, career coaching and other information and services.
Q: Do you do private coaching sessions for contract/salary negotiations and career direction? If so, how do we reach you?
A: Yes, I'm excited to say! We've recently launched more professional services, as we see the importance of educated guidance on topics such as contract reviews, negotiation and general consultation...especially from other PA-Cs. During our beta testing for these services, we routinely got our clients $5-10k more from their job offers, along with improved schedules and better benefits! We are striving to not just educate our clients, but empower them to be successful on their own in the future. While our website is under reconstruction, the best way to contact us about these services is via email: [email protected].
Just for our subscribers: The PA Blueprint is offering a discount code of 25% off all products and services with APPulse25.
We LOVE discounts and that entrepreneurial spark. Thank you for your contribution to our profession!!!
Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.
Have you started your own business or ventured outside of the clinical role? We would love to hear from you and share your story to inspire others. Please shoot us an email: [email protected]
📈Future APPs
As We Enter Graduation Season Our Hats are Off to New Grads!
The secrets no one tells you as a new NP or PA graduate.
Don’t delay joining our national and state organizations (AANP & AAPA). There is a wealth of helpful information out there. Pro-tip: Use a professional to build your resume/CV and find a career coach in the field using LinkedIn.
🧪Clinical Conundrums: Because We Love a Challenge!
Did last week’s question on abdominal X-Rays give you Gastritis?
Correct Answer: (A) - radiopaque foreign body
This is a pediatric KUB with a normal bowel gas pattern. No evidence of free air or other "red flag" aside from the presence of a radiopaque foreign body (FB). It is pertinent to define the FB and quickly triage your patient. This is generally a pediatric emergency associated with potential mucosal injury, perforation, and death. Here is an excellent (guideline) algorithm from the National Capital Poison Center (NCPC) on button battery ingestion.
Need more practice? For a succinct KUB tutorial, we recommend this lecture resource from Strong Medicine: Abdominal X-Rays Made Easy.
Tune in next week for a new case: CXRs give me palpitations!
🔎ICYMI
The DOJ attempts to pause a ruling jeopardizing preventative care
Full practice authority may not eliminate physician liability
Colorectal cancer is on the rise - options for screening
Meet the dream team - your APP writers
Pre-professional student pro-tips
Abdominal x-rays giving you gastritis? We’ve got you (+free CME)
Don’t forget to add us to your contacts or review your “promotions” and “spam” folders. We would hate for you to miss out!