Figure 2.

Physicians’ perceptions of working with physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) on clinical practice. Source: National Sample Survey of Physicians 2022, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Values are weight adjusted. Bar labels are outcomes of interest: “Allows me to care for more patients” (patient volume); “Improves my quality of care” (improved quality); “Helps me make better use of my time” (time use); and “Decreases my workload” (decreased workload). We conducted 2 series of 6 paired t tests (6 for PA statements and 6 for NP statements) to compare the means of agreement (including strongly agree and agree) in each pair of the 4 statements. Except for “PA patient volume” and “PA time use” (not significant), and “NP patient volume” and “NP time use” (p[T > t] = 0.001), all other 10 pairs showed a statistically significant difference in an agreement pattern with p < 0.000.