SB-435 & AB-438 - PA Modernization Act - Summary

• Updates the title: Changes the professional title from physician assistant to physician associate. Updates the state licensing board’s name to match.
   
• Expands titles: PAs can use “physician associate” in addition to their current legal titles.
   
• Independent practice option: Experienced physician associates can practice without a collaborating or supervising physician if they meet certain requirements.
   

• ❌ Doesn’t eliminate team-based care. PAs will continue working alongside physicians, nurses, and other professionals — just as they do today.
   
• ❌ Doesn’t apply to new graduates. Newly licensed PAs will still require collaboration and mentorship or supervision until they complete years of such clinical experience and mentorship.
   
• ❌ Doesn’t lower standards. Only PAs with at least 7,680 hours of supervised or collaborative practice and documented quality assurance are eligible for independent practice pathway.
   
• ❌ Doesn’t allow unrestricted pain procedures. Invasive pain treatments still require physician involvement unless performed in hospital-based settings with proper privileges.
   
• ❌ Doesn’t remove malpractice protections. All PAs — independent or collaborative — remain covered by malpractice insurance and the bill actually expands patient protections by including independent pathway PAs to the Wisconsin’s Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund.
   
• ❌ Doesn’t replace physicians. Physicians, PAs, and NPs will continue to be essential parts of Wisconsin’s healthcare workforce. This bill simply gives experienced PAs the ability to expand access where physicians are not available -the very reason PAs were created.

To qualify, a physician associate must:

• Have at least 7,680 hours (about 4 years full-time) of clinical practice.
   
• Show that they worked in a professional collaborative or supervised relationship during that time.
   
• Keep records of physician support for cases outside their expertise.
   
• Have been part of a quality or peer review program that included physician input.
   
• Hours can include past work inside or outside the state, federal service, or clinical training.
   

• Physician associates may only use invasive pain treatment techniques (like complex pain management injections or procedures) if they are working with a pain-specialist physician. This does not include routine joint injections that remain part of a PAs scope of pracrtice.
   
• If they qualify for independent practice, PAs may perform these techniques in hospitals or hospital clinics — or if they are granted hospital privileges — without needing a collaborating physician.
   

• Independent physician associates must join the Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund, which provides extra malpractice coverage (just like physicians and other providers in the state).
   
• All physician associates must continue to be covered by malpractice insurance under state law.