Job Interviews: Highlighting Benefits of NP

[cjcalimer]

I've recently passed my boards (yay!), gotten my liscense, and started the process of applications and interviews. One question that came up that I felt like I had a lame answer for was about the differences between NPs and PAs. The practice I was interviewing at generally hires PAs (it's mostly surgical so that would be a factor, but this would be a non-surgical position) and the person interviewing me was basically questioning if I could fulfill the same role. The practice is located in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (so either states scope of practice issues would be relevant) but I'd most likely only be practicing in NJ. I managed (I think) to clumsily communicate the fact that in NJ NPs are independent providers and free of physician oversight and made sure to mention that NPs have prescriptive authority with a collaborating physcian and do not require any onsite supervision. I'm not exactly sure how things work on the PA side of things. One of my preceptors mentioned that PAs can't see Medicare patients on their initial visit to the practice, but I wasn't sure if that was the case everywhere or just specific to that practice. Any suggestions would be great! I have a third interview there Monday and I'd love to have a better answer if the question comes up again.

[ghillbert, MSN, NP]

You can always say that you can't speak to the abilities of PAs but you can get familiar with the scope of practice of NPs in your state and advise what you can do.