“Washington County Hospital and Clinics is really a model of the kind of high-quality rural health care that every Iowa county needs and deserves.  With that in mind, its really hard to imagine a better place for us to sign House File 424,” Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said Wednesday before the crowd gathered at WCHC to witness her sign the bill into law.

HF 424, often referred to as the PA bill, is “An act providing for the collaborative practice of physician assistants by allowing for the practice of certain physician assistants without supervision by a physician.”  

Until now, state law required physician assistants to have a supervisory relationship with a specific physician in order to practice.  However, this was thought to be a barrier to employment, especially in rural communities.

“PAs are capable and well-trained medical professionals who should be given every encouragement to serve Iowa communities,” Gov. Reynolds said in her address.  “By eliminating the requirement for supervisory agreements between physicians and PAs, it allows providers and practitioners the flexibility to really structure the relationship as they see fit, rather than dictating an unnecessarily restrictive approach from the top down.”

Todd Patterson, CEO of WCHC, agreed that this legislation is needed when he spoke before the bill’s signing.

“Because of the way the existing law is set up, we don’t have any PAs that currently work for us directly.  All of the PAs that we have here are contracted.  We haven’t had the ability to tap into that pool,” he said.  “This PA modernization bill gives us the opportunity to really elevate our ability to recruit high-quality providers.”

State Senator Dawn Driscoll floor managed the bill in the Senate and was asked by Gov. Reynolds to give her remarks before the signing.

“Representative [Heather] Hora and I had our last legislative forum here a couple weeks ago, and we focused on this bill.  We talked about it with Todd and so many of the staff here,” she said.  “It means so much that we’re here today to sign this bill.  It gives me goosebumps, that you can see great legislation come forward where it’s going to benefit all of Iowa, and especially rural Iowa.”

Gov. Reynolds proceeded to sign HF 424 into law, taking pains to use each of the more than 30 pens laid out before her so that some of those in attendance could have a pen that was used to sign the bill.

“We made a law,” she said upon completion, to much applause.