Table 3.

PA/NP Use, Practice Staff Mix, and Primary Care Labor Costs by Department, 1997–2000

		Distribution of Practice-Year Values
	Mean of Practice-Year Values	Seventy-fifth Percentile	Median	Twenty-fifth Percentile
Adult Medicine (64 Practice Years)
Predicted percent of PA/NP visits	32.5%	39.0%	31.3%	24.9%
Observed percent of PA/NP visits	31.9%	40.1%	30.9%	23.5%
Average practitioner FTEs
MD	2.85	3.25	2.73	2.36
PA/NP	1.33	1.82	1.23	0.92
PAs/NPs as percent of practitioner FTEs	31.5%	39.5%	30.9%	23.5%
Average labor costs per visit
Practitioner	$23.74	$26.49	$23.93	$21.53
Total	$36.02	$39.35	$36.66	$33.34
Visits (1,000s)	24.584	22.850	21.471	20.322
Average practitioner tenure (years)	4.3	5.4	4.1	3.2
Pediatric Medicine (40 Practice Years)
Predicted percent of PA/NP visits	19.5%	24.1%	21.2%	12.8%
Observed percent of PA/NP visits	17.5%	23.6%	20.4%	12.1%
Average practitioner FTEs
MD	2.78	3.39	2.76	2.25
PA/NP	0.73	0.99	0.83	0.04
PAs/NPs as percent of practitioner FTEs	19.1%	26.5%	23.5%	1.6%
Average labor costs per visit
Practitioner	$28.04	$29.49	$27.45	$25.82
Total	$42.25	$45.57	$40.60	$37.54
Visits (1,000s)	17.365	20.517	16.978	12.744
Average practitioner tenure (years)	6.7	7.8	6.9	5.7