UC Irvine Physician Assistants win an 8% pay increase

Nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) are both important healthcare professionals who play crucial roles on the healthcare team. NPs and PAs both provide direct patient care—they can diagnose and treat illnesses, perform physical examinations, order and interpret tests, develop treatment plans, prescribe medications, and much more. Both positions require advanced degrees and licensing requirements.

Due to the similarity between these roles, it is common for their compensation to be structured in the same ways. That's why in May 2019, UCI and UPTE agreed that UCI would establish a new step structure for Physician Assistants and Senior Physician Assistants that would make sure the PA wage scale stayed consistent with the Nurse Practitioner wage scale. Predictably, however, we needed to continue to push management to make this agreement a reality.

After much perseverance and efforts by UPTE members, PAs at UC Irvine are now set to receive an 8% increase to their pay structure, effective July 1 of this year.

"This is about equal pay for equal work. Nurse practitioners have had a much higher pay scale than our physician assistants, although we do the same things and have the same job descriptions. UC has an obligation to provide quality care to its patients, but they can't do that without treating every member of the care team fairly and making sure people want to work here and stay here," said Janette Villalon, a PA at UC Irvine and an UPTE steward. "This recognition of our value will demonstrate to future and current PAs that we are valued, respected, and appreciated and at the end of the day, being able to staff up and retain our workforce is a victory for our patients."

To secure this victory, members demonstrated to HR how the UCI-generated job series for both positions was essentially the same, showing that many NPs and PAs work side by side in the same specialities and often cross cover each other. We collected signatures on a letter of unity signed by all PAs, as well as a letter signed by their attending physicians showing their support for PAs fighting for pay parity with the NPs. 

This effort is also a great example of how we can support each other across UC campuses. Members sought support and guidance from fellow UPTE PAs, including Judd Laraway at UCSD and Matt Stephen of UCSF, who were able to provide help and support along the way. We aren't done, however—these members are still fighting to make this victory retroactive and also secure additional on-call pay. Stay tuned!