Joel Kutz, owner, regional manager, and recruiter at Physician Assistant Solutions shares his thoughts on why PAS stands out among recruiting agencies. Not only does Joel wear many hats within the PAS business, but he also still practices as a PA in orthopedics and enjoys his day-to-day in the field. This allows him to stay relevant in the field and in tune with many of the roles he recruits for. He has the knowledge needed to help his clients find great candidates for their organization’s needs.
What is your background in the field?
I graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI, in 2005 and started working in orthopedics right away. I have also spent some time in family practice.
Why did you start PA Solutions?
What got me into this is when I was working in orthopedics, I was the only PA that was working for an orthopedic surgeon in the area and there was always the question of, “Can you find somebody for me?”
At that point in time, there was really no way for me to reach out to any significant source to find people that may be looking, other than going back to my school.
Out of that, I started to create a website, build a database and a community of PAs that are all looking for the same thing and then helping practices find good providers.
What makes PA Solutions different than other recruiting companies?
What is most unique about our service is that we are providers working in the field that help practices find physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
Being a physician assistant, working in orthopedic surgery for the last 15 years and then also experience in family practice, it gives us a unique perspective on not only helping practices find what they want but an understanding of the current climate of medicine to help physician assistants and nurse practitioners understand what they want too. It really is about trying to find that right fit for everyone.
I think this experience is something that makes us unique and successful and also gives us instant credibility. We’re a small company with a small company feel so you are always talking with a physician assistant.
For practices and physician assistants that are using our service, knowing that they are talking to someone that is practicing in the field gives us a unique angle.
Our price point is very reasonable. We’re very responsive. We’re available almost seven days a week at almost any time.
PA Solutions doesn’t just serve physician assistants, you also recruit nurse practitioners. Can you talk about that?
We do. It’s a very natural progression. Many of the practices that we work with are typically looking for either role or possibly both – it is determined by the type of practice.
For example, nurse practitioners don’t hold the ability to do surgery and get reimbursed for that, so PAs are utilized more in the surgical specialties versus NPs. NPs are seen more in pediatrics and the NICU.
So there are always certain practices that use one over the other but in many cases, there’s this mesh point, where they could take either so it’s a matter of finding the right personality fit that will equate to longevity for employment.
Does PA Solutions work more with companies looking to hire or with practitioners looking for a job?
We have quite a few resources for both practices that are looking to hire a PA as well as PA or NPs that are looking to get through this employment process. We definitely help out on both sides.
We work with a lot of practices — both big practices and big hospital organizations and small mom and pop practices — that are looking for providers and try to help them find people and make sure we understand where their needs are.
Probably on average, we talk to 40 to 60 PAs every week, of different clinical experience levels, to guide them as far as what things are out there and also to try to help them focus on where they should be looking and how to most effectively look for positions.
What has changed in 11 years since you started PA Solutions?
When we first started 11 years ago, we were really the only recruiter that would recruit for physician assistants. It was so relatively new there wasn’t a lot of interest in recruiting PAs.
I think there’s more interest and the growth of the profession over the last 10 years has been tremendous.
Medicine continues to change every year, as far as the rules and how to utilize providers, how healthcare delivered, what’s the most effective way and ultimately what’s the most efficient way to deliver care.
Also over the last 11 years, there has been a lot of changes in just legislation for physician assistants and nurse practitioners.
Each state has its own set of rules so some of the states, in the beginning, made it very difficult for a physician assistant to practice.
A lot of hoops had to be jumped through to do things and other things that were just prohibitive for a practice to bring someone on because of the oversight that needed to be done.
Over the last several years, there’s been quite a bit of advancement as far as lifting some of those regulatory issues and allowing PAs to practice a little bit more freely so they can deliver care pretty effectively.
If you would like to talk to Joel directly about PAS services, contact him at 586.569.9776 or email at joel@pa-solutions.com.