Moonlighting, Locum Tenens, Concierge Medicine and Physician Assistants

Moonlighting for Physician Assistants

Updated: 08/06/2015

Moonlighting is by definition, “having a second job in addition to one’s regular employment.” While moonlighting is very popular amongst the physician community, physician assistants (PAs) may also find moonlighting useful to boost income sources and pay off student debt, or simply to increase the amount of experience in their current area of practice or another. As PA students are not yet certified in their clinical phase, they may not moonlight. However, if a PA-C wishes to moonlight as a resident or during a fellowship, they may legally provide medical care as licensed physician assistants. Currently, no survey shows the number of PAs who are moonlighting, but it seems that interest in these positions as secondary jobs are becoming more popular. Declining reimbursements and skyrocketing student loan interest rates seem to be the main drivers of this type of work, but it’s up to the PA to determine how much work is enough before they are burning themselves out.

According to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), residents are restricted to 80-hour work weeks, averaged over a four-week period, inclusive of all in-house call activities and all moonlighting. This limit was created to enhance the education of residents while allowing for necessary rest, conducive to productive learning. However, there is no limit for currently practicing physician assistants (PA-C) that are not enrolled in a residency or fellowship program.

Health Care Experience and PA School

Health Care Experience and PA School

Updated: 06/08/2016

Whether you’re new to learning about physician assistants, you’re still not sure if PA is right for you, or you know that you want to go into the medical field, health care experience can be a tricky business. Many application systems out there require you to fill in your experience in a very technical, monotonous way. The CASPA (Central Application Service for Physician Assistants), AMCAS (American Medical College Application Service) and TMDSAS (Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service) are the most well-known. So you’re probably wondering what type of health care experience (HCE) you’ll need? Yes, the abbreviation “HCE” stands for health care experience, and you’ll see many students and PAs using it a lot when they talk about admissions requirements. I’ll talk about the different types of experience below and then list a few types under each. Just as a tip, always ensure that your “training” for any profession you list below is not counted in your hours of experience, as schools will not accept any training hours as HCE.

Patient Care Experience

This is experience in which you are directly involved in the patient’s care.