For physicians assistants, the new pain points are payers, paperwork and figuring out what AI is OK to use

Physician assistants say the biggest day-to-day shift in recent years isn’t just clinical complexity, it’s the growing drag of insurance friction, plus the uncertainty of how to use AI responsibly inside workflows that still aren’t standardized across practices.

In discussing survey findings, Kelly Villella of Wolters Kluwer said PAs flagged dealing with insurance companies and navigating AI tools as top challenges, with documentation emerging as the pressure point where practices are still trying to balance compliance with time back at the bedside.

Physicians Practice: OK, so we’re in the brave new world of AI being involved in everything. What’s changed most in the day-to-day reality of being a PA in the last few years?

Kelly Villella: They mentioned in the survey that the top two things were dealing with insurance companies—which is an area we’ll need to dig into further. We didn’t get a lot of detail around that, although we all deal with insurance companies and can imagine what that must be like. And then the use of AI tools. AI is around us, and every practice hasn’t taken on AI officially into their technology. So people are grappling with what to use, what not to use, and acceptable use. And then that documentation piece came up—both documentation and the intersection of AI to support documentation. That’s an area they cited, and other surveys have also cited it as something AI could support. That’s an area people feel less prepared. Documentation is tricky—it’s important, but it also takes you away from face-to-face with the patient. AI might support making it more efficient and effective. Those are my connections from what I saw in the survey.