Atlanta, GA - April 13, 2011 - The Georgia Association of Physician Assistants (GAPA) is applauding the Georgia General Assembly for its passage of House Bill (HB) 303, the GAPA bill to amend the Physician Assistant (PA) Act. The bill was passed last night, near the end of the State’s 2011 legislative session.

“It is usually hard to successfully pass a bill in one General Assembly session,” said Mary Vacala, ATC, PA-C, MSPAS, DFAAPA. Vacala is the 2010-11 GAPA president. “But with the tireless efforts Legislative Committee chaired by Jeff Chambers, PA-C, ATC, and the support of the GAPA membership, we did it.”

“This is a great day for PAs throughout Georgia!  Congratulations to the GAPA leadership, members and staff who helped made this happen,” said Bradford W. Schwarz, MS, PA-C. Schwarz is associate professor and chair of the Physician Assistant Program at Mercer University.

HB 303, sponsored by Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta), contains elements that address the elimination of the “subsequent visit” requirement added to the PA Act in 2009.  The bill allows PAs to authenticate almost all health care documents within the scope of practice of their supervising physician, and it simplifies record keeping in the signing and distribution of pharmaceutical samples.

“I sponsored HB 303 because we needed to clarify some issues that weren’t clarified when we revised the Medical Practice Act, explained Rep. Cooper. “We had made it very complicated for physician assistants and nurse practitioners to use medical samples. Now if they use a sample they record it in a patient’s chart, just like physicians do. There was also confusion about how often a physician should see a patient if they had seen a PA. We clarified that and said that the doctor will decide, according to the patient’s condition, how often they need to see the patient.”

It is the mission of the Georgia Association of Physician Assistants to promote high quality, cost-effective, accessible health care as part of a physician-directed PA/physician team in Georgia.