PA-Cents First 6 months

I hope everyone has had a great PA week, and have found ways to celebrate 50 years of the profession and help educate others. The end of PA week just so happens to coincide with the six month anniversary of www.pacents.com; what started out as a way to help keep track of my student loans has evolved into so much more. In PA school we learn a lot about diagnosing and treating illnesses and how to pass the PANCE. We don’t learn a lot about the intricacies of being PA.

There’s a lot more to being a PA then getting the right diagnosis, although that is probably the most important part there is a lot that goes into the job. During PA school we spent a day on billing issues, most of which didn’t make any sense to me as I did not have a working knowledge of what was going on.

I don’t recall ever talking about the process of looking for a job, negotiating salary, bonus structure, and other benefits. I’ve had discussions with other PAs who are currently practicing and they still have a lot of confusion about billing issues as well as bonus structure. I’ve talked to PA’s who are compensated on workRVU’s, but have no idea how exactly the bonus is calculated and all they know is that they aren’t receiving a bonus.

If you don’t know how your bonus is calculated you can’t expect to ever reach your bonus. It is important to understand what you need to do to get to your bonus so that you can reach that level.

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Part of what I hope to do with this blog is help other PAs and PA students with other parts of the PA profession that were never discussed in PA school. I hope to create a community where it is ok to discuss salary and bonus structure, and I hope to help you understand different bonus structures so you can be better equipped for negotiation.

Also, one of the main reason I started this blog is to help students who have student loans understand their options for having their schooling paid or dealing with their student loans once they are working. PA school is expensive and there are other options besides student loans to help cover the expense of school. My hope is that I can help others looking at becoming PAs be better prepared to pay for school so they are not stuck with student loans – I have a ton and know they aren’t fun to pay off once you’re done.

For PA week 2017 I have been able to highlight some of the popular articles, other money saving tips, as well as other places where I’ve been featured. It has been a journey getting this blog going and I plan to continue to work on providing valuable information for the readers.

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