PART V. PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS
§1360.21. Legislative intent
A. Shortages of all skilled health personnel, particularly in rural and urban medically
underserved areas and in the field of primary care medicine, new scientific and technological
developments, and new methods of organizing health services have made the question of
new uses for allied health personnel the critical issue to be resolved if our supply of health
manpower is to be used effectively and productively. In its concern with the growing
shortage and geographic maldistribution of health care services in Louisiana, the rising cost
of health care services in the state and nationally, and the need for primary health care by
thousands of Louisiana citizens, the legislature intends to modernize the laws governing
physician assistant practice.
B. Physician assistants are health care professionals qualified by academic and
clinical education and licensed by the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners to
provide health care services at the direction and under the supervision of a physician or a
group of physicians approved by the board as a supervising physician.
C. It is the intent of this Part to permit the more effective utilization of the skills of
physicians, particularly in the primary care setting, by enabling them to delegate medical
services to qualified physician assistants when such delegation is consistent with the patient's
health and welfare.
D. It is the intent of this Part to encourage and permit the utilization of physician
assistants by physicians and assist in the development of the physician assistant profession
and allow for innovative developments of programs for the education of physician assistants.
It is also the purpose of this Part to provide for a system of licensing physician assistants and
regulating their relationship with supervising physicians so that a high quality of service is
assured.
Added by Acts 1977, No. 753, §1. Acts 1993, No. 662, §1, eff. June 16, 1993; Acts
1997, No. 316, §1; Acts 2015, No. 453, §1, eff. July 1, 2015.