Ohio bill seeks to expand the duties of physician assistants

The Ohio House recently passed a bill aiming to authorize eligible physician assistants to write prescriptions. According to the legislation, a physician assistant could be granted authority to write prescriptions if he or she holds a master’s degree or higher; or had prescriptive authority in another jurisdiction or the military. The bill further specified that a physician would have to supervise an assistant’s first 500 hours of prescribing.

 

The bill—which has now been introduced to the state Senate for consideration—also proposes other rule changes, such as increasing the maximum number of physician assistants a physician is allowed at one time from two to three.