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Preparing for the 2019 AAPA Conference in Denver, Colorado

2019 AAPA Conference Planning

The 2019 AAPA Conference in Denver, Colorado is only a couple of weeks away. If this is your first time, you’ll want to be ready for the week. There are a few things you should do ahead of time to make it a smooth week.

First, if you have not already booked housing you should make sure you have that set up. This year, AAPA charged extra in conference fees if you did not do a reservation in official housing, so most people probably booked housing when they registered for the conference.

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AAPA Conference Housing

If for some reason you did not, and wanted to go the Airbnb route, you’ll want to make sure you have something reserved as housing might be in short demand. There’s a good chance you’ll pay less at an Airbnb, but you’ll most likely have to pay for transportation/parking at the conference; and you’ll be paying an extra $200 for not staying in official conference housing.

AAPA Conference Travel

Hopefully you arranged air travel around the same time you registered for the conference, but if this slipped your mind you’ll want to make sure your travel to the conference is set up.

AAPA Conference Schedule

Next, you should check out the 2019 AAPA Conference Schedule as you’ll be able to set up your agenda for the week. You can access the entire conference schedule and view every session that is available. You have the option to search the sessions by subject matter by choosing a specific track, so you can look at the sessions that are most relevant to you.

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Certain workshops have an extra fee, so you’ll want to sign up for those in advance as some of them fill up quickly. I thought I might do an ultrasound workshop this year, but by the time I looked at it there weren’t any openings available.

If you click on my sessions, it’ll take you to a log in screen where you can log into your AAPA account and create a personalized schedule for the week. This will help prevent you from missing out on anything.

PA-Cents Recommended AAPA Conference Sessions

If you’re a student and are looking at taking the PANCE, you’ll probably want to focus on sessions that focus on areas that will help you review. If you recently passed the PANCE and are a new PA or a PA that is not close to taking the PANRE, I would suggest checking out some sessions that PA school does not always cover well. Topics such as billing and leadership, which are very important in real life, but not as important for passing a test, are great subjects to learn.

Coming out of PA school I had very little knowledge of billing and reimbursement, there’s a lot to learn in becoming a PA. Most people did not go to PA school because they wanted to worry about billing and reimbursement, but if you want to maximize your earnings it is important to understand these topics, as the bottom line for most employers is how you can make them money.

Also, the fact is that anything that is billed out for what you do is under your name, even though you might have a billing department that takes care of it, the provider whose name is on it is the one that is ultimately responsible for it. Three sessions that will cover reimbursement for your work include, Reimbursement Update for the Office Setting, A How-To Guide: Implementing Shared Medical Visits at Your Office and Medicare Billing and Reimbursement for PAs: Hospital Inpatient and Outpatient Settings.  It might not be the most interesting topic for a PA, but it is one of the most important to have a good understanding if you want to stay out of legal trouble.

There’s a lot to be seen and done at the 2019 AAPA conference and every PA has the ability to personalize the week to their needs. If you’re going to the annual conference this year, make sure to plan ahead of time. Hope to see you there!

What sessions are you planning on attending at the the 2019 AAPA annual conference in Denver, Colorado? Please comment below the original post, sign up to receive future posts by email and share with your friends!