In the midst of the nationwide physician shortage, physician assistants are becoming increasingly critical to meeting the needs of a growing and aging patient population. To that end, PA salaries have been on the rise.
The national median salary for all PAs was $95,000 in 2014, according to the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants' 2016 annual report. PA salaries in certain regions are higher than others, with those in Alaska, Arizona California, Connecticut and Minnesota making median salaries of $105,000 in 2014.
Here are six more findings on PAs from the report.
1. In 2014, 66.7 percent of PAs in the U.S. were male, and 33.3 percent were female.
2. Nearly a quarter of PAs — 22.4 percent — said they could communicate with patients in another language in addition to English. The most common languages include Spanish, Russian and French. About 6 percent of PAs indicated they were Hispanic.
3. The highest proportion of PAs (36.6 percent) were between the ages of 30 and 39.
4. The most common practice areas for PAs in 2014 were family medicine/general practice (19.7 percent), surgical subspecialties (19.5 percent), emergency medicine (13.8 percent), other (11.2 percent) or an internal medicine subspecialty (7.6 percent).
5. Most PAs work in an office-based private practice (39.8 percent), with hospitals as the next most popular setting (37.3 percent).
6. PAs work an average of 41 hours and see an average of 76 patients per week.