Are we facing a physician assistant surplus?

The rapid growth in the physician assistant (PA) pipeline reflects in part a growing demand for health services that has created many opportunities for new PAs. However, the simultaneous growth in the production of physicians and NPs raises the question as to whether the nation will overproduce PAs and other clinicians. Although the growing supply of PAs will help meet the nation's healthcare needs, this study concludes that the job market for new PAs is likely to tighten. The authors recommend a system to track supply, demand, and distribution to inform the PA community and to encourage alignment of supply and demand.