Identifying Endocrinology Nurse Practitioners and Physician Associates Using Claims Data

Abstract Although nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician associates (PAs) provide a growing proportion of pediatric specialty care, research using medical claims data may omit this care because the specializations of NPs and PAs are not reflected by their taxonomy codes. Using 2021 Montana Medicaid claims data and phone-based surveys of 37 providers, we found that a high proportion of NP or PA visits associated with a type 1 diabetes diagnosis was a reliable indicator that the provider specialized in endocrinology. This finding suggests an opportunity to better account for NP- and PA-provided specialty care in future health-care workforce research.