Physician assistants are the NCMB’s fastest growing licensee group. Since 2009, their ranks have increased by 2,000 to just over 5,000 PAs – an increase of approximately 40 percent over five years. Over the same time period, the much larger physician licensee population has increased by nearly 3,000 (an increase of about 10 percent.) And there are no signs that the PA growth rate is slowing. PAs are frequently mentioned as critical to addressing the state’s developing shortage of primary care doctors. However, data show that PAs, like physicians, tend to settle mostly in the state’s population centers.
PA population infographic