- Board of Registration of Physician Assistants
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Department of Public Health
Bureau of Health Professions Licensure
Board of Registration of Physician Assistants
239 Causeway Street, Suite 500, Boston, MA 02114
Tel: 617-973-0806
Fax: 617-973-0980
TTY : 617-973-0988
www.mass.gov/dph/boards/pa
CHARLES D. BAKER, Governor
KARYN E. POLITO, Lieutenant Governor
MARYLOU SUDDERS, Secretary
MONICA BHAREL, MD, MPH Commissioner
IMPORTANT NOTICE: REGARDING MASSHEALTH ENROLLMENT
The Board of Registration of Physician Assistants would like to provide guidance to those individuals who are applying for a license to practice as a Physician Assistant in the Commonwealth for the first time and to licensed Physician Assistants (PAs) applying for renewal of their licenses.
The Affordable Care Act[1] requires physician assistants and certain other providers to enroll in MassHealth as a condition of licensure. Specifically, each PA must enroll as a Nonbilling Provider (also known as an Ordering Referral and Prescribing (ORP) provider). Consequently, when applying for initial PA licensure, an individual must first fully complete and submit to MassHealth an application to be a Nonbilling Provider. For more information click here: https://www.mass.gov/how-to/how-to-enroll-to-be-a-masshealth-orp-provider.
MassHealth will accept your application even though you have not yet received your Massachusetts PA license, and put it in a “pending” status. Next, submit your fully completed physician assistant application to the Board of Registration of Physician Assistants. The application form will ask you to attest that you have “submitted a thoroughly completed nonbilling provider application and signed provider contract to MassHealth.” The Board’s staff will process your PA license application. See the following for application forms and additional information: https://www.mass.gov/how-to/apply-for-a-physician-assistant-license. After you have obtained your Massachusetts PA license, contact MassHealth and they will change your application status from “pending” to “enrolled.”
For licensed PAs who have not yet enrolled in MassHealth as a Nonbilling Provider, you must do so before you renew your PA license.
[1] See also M.G.L.c. 112 § 9F