Hi! I haven’t even entered my nursing program yet and I’m already thinking about the future. For some context, I have a BA, unrelated to the medical field, and for financial reasons I’ve decided to get my ADN degree and BSN at the same time in a program called CEP at my community college. I figured it’s cheaper that way I can pay more for a masters and no be in as much debt. Anyway, I’m doing research and I’m undecided as to what would be better, PA or NP? If you went the PA route, why did you make this decision, how was school, how happy are you with your decision? I’ve even considered going straight to the masters in PA instead of going to nursing school but I figure I still need some pre reqs since my degree is in an unrelated area. I also think the nursing degree would be a good foundation. Too many questions. Thank you for reading!

What is it like as a PA in Louisiana right now? What about the future outlook? Or Texas?

Considering doing the NHSC loan repayment program to get rid of my loans.

MCOL area

Base salary: 143,000

Sign on bonus: $30,000

Full health benefits, 401k, and 30 days PTO

CME: $4,000

Malpractice: Tail included

Expected to see 28 patients per day.

Thoughts?

Title speaks for itself. I’m 6 months in to my first job out of school as an orthopedic surgery PA on the west coast. This was my top choice specialty out of school. I like my surgeons and coworkers but I can’t help but feel so dumb and stupid like things aren’t clicking. I’m always supported with a surgeon or sometimes a senior PA by my side. I work with 6 different surgeons in 6 different specialties and learning all of their protocols/treatment plans/orders has been difficult. I’m so slow in the OR, I’m asking thousands of questions every day all day. It’s hard being a new grad and I feel like it’s not talked about enough. When will I start feeling okay about things? I start taking call next week which makes me sick to my stomach if I think about it too hard. I get good feedback because I’m open to learning and hyperaware that there is so much that I don’t know. The other PAs at work told me it’ll take 1 year to feel good, and at least 2 to feel solid- this is reassuring but at the same time I feel like I’m never going to get to that point. Just here to vent and looking for some advice from others who have gone through this.

I’m thinking about picking up a side gig with one of these companies, but want to know more about it.

Any advice is appreciated.

Is there a way to have dual citizenship/live in a country that doesn’t recognize PAs and still work as a PA in the US? Maybe via telehealth? Is this legal? Is something like this achievable? Maybe travel to the US to work but not too often? I wouldn’t want to travel as often as monthly and I wouldn’t want to stay for longer than a month at a time. How can I live abroad but still have a decent income as a PA in the US?

Investing advice as a PA? Starting a side hustle? How do yall maximize your knowledge for financial freedom?

Recently received an offer from hospital system in orange county. Any recommendations for a lawyer whos familiar with OC/SC laws who can review my contract with reasonable price?

You're getting ready to leave and you hear, "oh you're still here!", or "hey I have a quick question...", or "can I get a quick order for..." And it turns into a whole debacle and now you're late leaving because you care about your patients....

Hello Everyone,

I just received my first job offer, and would love to get some input on a full time position.

Outpatient Urology, MCOL area.

- Base: $121,000

- M-F 8:00-5:00. No call.

- CME, License, DEA and malpractice with tail coverage will be covered

- CME: $2,5000. Entitled to use up to 40 hours for CME requirements.

- Will cover up to $700 per fiscal year for annual renewal of state licensure, society membership, and purchase of job specific required equipment

- Offers 403(b) and/or 401(b) plans

- Paid annual leave: accrual basis (Max PAL hours per year 175.97)

- Quality incentive bonus (maximum quality incentive to earn is 5% of annual base salary)

- Training: up to 6 months (depends on how soon I feel comfortable seeing an entire patient caseload)

- Goal of 16-18 patients per day, patient appointments are 30 minutes

Overall, I am happy with this offer, but I have been told that that we should always negotiate before accepting the first offer. Seeing that this is my first job as a PA, I would really appreciate any advice or feedback.

I have an offer for a new OBGYN, part time new grad position (minimum 20 hours a week). Doing part time because of other responsibilities. Private office with 2 doctors, 2 APPS. Felxible with schedule, cool nice doctors. I asked to assist in surgeries if possible.

-Pay is $63 hourly

-Benefits: Vacation (5 days of PTO per calendar year for part-time employment, Holidays off, $500 CME, 401K with 3% company match

Should I negotiate salary? What are other questions I should ask?

You know who I'm talking about. You're twenty minutes into your fifteen minutes appointment and haven't even started charting. Your hands on the doorknob and you've twice said you have to leave and the patient is still talking like you're just getting started. Outside of a secret code where the nurse pulls you out for an "emergency" how do you end these visits? (Of course, no matter what you do, they're gonna have the front desk sign them up for three months follow up regardless). Serious and non serious answers appreciated.

Hello all,

I’ve been meaning to post for a minute. I’ve been in a small 2 doc private practice ortho group for 3 years. Everything going pretty well. Recently the local hospital got bought by a new group and has approached my doc about signing on there to build a hospital associated ortho group with the hope of eventually bringing in more docs. This is something he is considering and he’s an amazing SP that I mesh well with both professionally and personally out of the office so if he goes then I’m going with him. So now to the questions I have:

Moving to a hospital system and basically outside of the obvious of trying to get as much PTO/CME/tail coverage/certification fees covered, I’m stuck on if there is anything I can negotiate. He showed us their pay scale and it is rvu based starting at 50% of the scale and you get paid on % productivity in their model so if you only get 10% then you get paid less (never been on this model so seems foreign😬). As it stands now I will continue with my solo clinic 2-3 weekly helping to support him the other 2 days he is in clinic. Sounds like my other NP I work with and I will both be pretty autonomous. Biggest question I guess is is there any room to negotiate down on the rvu required to hit certain percentiles or are those set in stone? Seems harder in ortho when I’m seeing a vast majority of the postops for my doc, which brings me to my next question on another post I saw someone mention a team rvu approach. If anyone has specifics/examples on how this works I’d love to hear.

If you read this far thanks! Happy thanksgiving!

Hi all!

Does anyone have experience within the field of pediatric hospital-based medicine? It’s an area I’m interested in (in theory), but haven’t had a lot of exposure to. I had a really good adult hospitalist rotation during clinicals, but only ever saw pediatric outpatient.

For anyone in the field:

1. What is your day-to-day like?
2. What are your views on starting in this field as a new grad? Do you believe a fellowship is nearly required?
3. What are the most difficult parts of the field?
4. Do you believe it would be hard to transition back to adult medicine?

Feel free to add any input!!! I’d just like to hear more about experiences in this field.

Might rile some feathers here, but if you don’t feel “rich” on a PA salary, you have a life style creep problem. That’s not to say shit hasn’t gotten more expensive, and you can just ball out thoughtlessly on whatever you want, but if you can’t make a PA salary work as a solo income, you need to change.

Even if you’re in a lower paid area, we make more money than 80% of the country.

When I started working at 23 out of school with 80k in loans (which isn’t nothing, but better than most) I went “weeeeee!” And started living large and not keeping track of my spending. “Sure, my old high school era beater car is breaking down, I’ll get me a new car! I deserve it after all, I make 100k and made it through school!”For a whole year making 115k, I saved almost nothing and didn’t even think about retirement. When I actually confronted the fact that I was more stressed about my finances.

Then, I pulled it together, got on a budget with my fiancé who makes 20/hr. We paid off 80k in student loans, built up a 4 month emergency fund and put a down payment on a 500k house (yes, in this economy) within a 3 year period by:

1. Not going out to eat
2. Not taking vacations vacation where we flew, only camping road trips
3. Paying off our cars, no monthly car payment.
4. Limiting our shared fun money to prioritize our goals.

It was emotionally and spiritually transformative (not in the religious sense) and made me a more grateful person. I now have all of that debt payoff and savings margin back, and while putting 20% of my income away in a 401k/roth 401k, we have an extra 2 grand each month to take vacations with, buy high quality food and prioritize our health, and be generous with. Now I can see if the situation felt differently with a couple extra mouths to feed, medical expenses, family needs, or what not. But generally speaking more debt in this country is consumer debt, which is just bad.

It was fucking hard. We had to quiet the 5 year old inside of us screaming “I want it now!” But now I understand what financially secure feels like, and I’m so thankful.

I left my first job out of school after only a couple of months. The stress and random schedule was too much for me. I found a different job in a different specialty (IR) with a much better schedule, better pay, and overall seems like a better fit for me. When I discussed my plan to leave my first job, I was asked to provide a 90 day notice in order to leave in good standing or I would have to resign effective immediately. I was prepared to give a formal 2 weeks but not 3 months. I had already received and signed the job offer for my new position and thus felt like my only option was to leave effective immediately, which is what I ultimately did. Are there any negative career repercussions with doing something like this, given the circumstance?

Hi! I’m from Chicago and my family and I are planning to move back. I’ve been working in cardiology over 3 years and would like to stay in this specialty when we move. Any feedback from cardiology PAs in Chicago about hiring process, medical centers to avoid if any, salary expectations, if your facility is hiring soon😂, etc? Thank you:)

I know there aren't many telemedicine jobs out there for PAs, but I'm currently in the job search and interested in telemedicine. Any advice on where to search for these jobs or best way to find them? Thanks in advance!

So today was my 5th day of training. And I’m always asking questions to my trainer to make sure I’m doing everything correctly. I just felt like there was alot of passive aggressiveness. And I felt like they don’t really want to help me. So I’m just avoiding asking questions bc I’m just tired of it. I also think they talks sh*t about me to other ppl in clinic (like MA or other providers)

Also, today I had an incident where this patient was in a room that doesn’t speak a lick of English. And I don’t see a translator Line or anything like that. I was told “I just use Google translator” I’m like wtf that’s going to take forever. And just as I thought it look like 30 mins maybe a little more. My trainer is like “where have you been?” As if I wasn’t working and I was bullshitting. I told her where I was and they’re like “okay sooo have you been in any of the patients room” and I’m like no I’ve been busy using Google translate. Like they knew what I was doing…

Also I feel like their thinking I’m incompetent bc I was asking them about dosing for kids asking them if this was correct and they’re like “did they not teach you guys dosing in PA school”….. I just needed to make sure I was correct. But I’m never asking them anything again.

We are also seeing like 80pts a day…. I don’t know guys. I guess I’m just here to vent. I don’t see myself with the company for long.

How much “revenue” should a PA typically be bringing in for their company/hospital? Just curious? 500k? 1 million? My company shares income metrics. I’m at a new company, just marked one year, and brought in 50k my last month and I’m still building a patient base. Let’s say I bring in 50k a month, that would be 600k a year. What percentage should a provider be asking/expecting based upon what they bring in. My current salary for the first year is 130k in NY/CT area. Telehealth, psych.

Hi I am interested in a job in phoenix. What is typical salary of someone with 11 years of PA experience working in oncology? Has anyone been offered relocation?

Hi all. I was offered two different positions and am stuck. Would greatly appreciate any opinions because I’m truly torn between the two

1st offer- compensation package not great, pay is slightly below market , benefits are okay. Pension after 10 years. Days only , 3 12s. Upside is it’s in a specialty I’ve wanted since PA school and notoriously difficult to get into. Salary- 135k

2nd offer- about 15k more per year, better insurance/retirement/ overall benefits. Pension after 3 years. Schedule is 3 12s, rotating. Specialty is similar to what I’m doing now. I like it but don’t love it. Salary- 155k

For context I have about 3 years experience, VHCOL area. Both offers are a 20 min drive from my house.

Which would you all pick ?

Just wondering if PAs typically feel like they are very well off financially, or if loans and bills still stack up and keep you from feeling "rich".

Any PAs who are in a specialty they never thought they would be in? What was it, and what was the specialty that you thought you would love but ended up not liking? I’m curious to see how and why specialties end up changing a person’s mind haha

I was initially told by the SP and team that there would be on-call duties. However, when I asked HR for additional compensation for this, they clarified that there would be no on-call requirement and that I would be working 40 hours a week. The SP mentioned that on-call would only apply if she is away, so it seems minimal. As a new grad, I'm unsure if I should request that the no on-call policy be explicitly stated in my offer letter. My offer letter only mentions my base salary, with no details about on-call, PTO, or other benefits. In your experience, is it common for offer letters to include more specifics like on-call requirements or PTO?

How long has it taken people to get licensed by the CA board in the last few months??

Hi everyone,

I’m a new grad PA, and I’ve been offered a job at a nursing facility. The offer includes: • First 3 months: Base pay of $100K annually + earnings from CPT codes. • After 3 months: Base pay drops to $75K annually + CPT code earnings.

The hiring manager said providers typically earn $150K–$200K/year with this model. I was given a list of CPT codes, showing how much I’d earn for various services (e.g., $33 for a moderate-complexity new admission, $35 for a high-complexity follow-up).

As a new grad, I’m worried about the drop in base pay and whether I’ll realistically hit the expected income. Does anyone have experience with CPT code/RVU-based pay? Is this a common structure, or should I be cautious?

Thanks in advance for the help!

I am a new grad PA working in an outpatient private practice. Schedule is great and pay is decent.

To set the scene in the practice it’s myself one other PA and the SP.

The SP bills all patients under him to insurance. How big of a deal is it? Should I get out?

I took the last set of questions last month and got an update to my certification today but on NCCPA is says the certification is through 2026 and not 2034. Why is it not for 10 years? I must be missing something.

Hello,

A recruiter reached out to me recently regarding a clinical physician assistant role at Mt. Sinai's Addiction Institute. I'd love to connect with any PAs currently working there or who may have worked there in the past for their advice/feedback regarding the salary, environment, growth prospects etc. Your can reply to this thread or feel free to DM me.