There are other costs beyond monetary ones from unnecessary skin biopsies: scarring, follow-up procedures for uncertain diagnoses such as mild dysplastic nevi, ambiguous results, and emotional angst to patients.
Dr. Brett M. Coldiron
If the results of this large study are to be believed, many melanomas in situ are going to be missed if PAs perform unsupervised skin cancer screenings. This is not a tenable proposition, ethically or legally. Dermatologists and PAs need to work together to ensure this does not happen.
An estimated 2,520 dermatology PAs were practicing in the United States in 2016, based on membership data from the Society of Dermatology PAs (SDPA), according to a research letter published last year (J Am Acad Dermatol. 2017 Jun;76[6]:1200-2). The SDPA, as stated in an SDPA position statement published in the winter 2017 newsletter, hopes to gain access to direct billing to public and private insurers, which would include the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and for PAs to no longer report to other health care professionals.