Indiana’s physician assistant (PA) workforce reflects a young, growing profession with more than 2,400 actively practicing PAs serving communities across the state. These professionals work primarily in hospitals and specialty clinics, with surgical subspecialties, emergency medicine, and family practice as the most common areas of focus. The workforce skews younger and predominately female, with most PAs having completed their education within Indiana.
Telehealth has emerged as an important service delivery method, with nearly half of PAs now offering remote care options. While PAs serve diverse patient populations, geographic distribution remains uneven. Urban counties benefit from robust PA presence, while many rural areas face significant gaps in coverage. More than 20 counties report no practicing PAs at all.
See the full PA workforce snapshot at the end of this post. Instructions for using it are below.
How to Use This Workforce Data Snapshot
This new workforce snapshot draws on the 2024 PA Data Report and provides an overview of PAs in Indiana based on data collected during the 2024 license renewal period.
Key Information Includes
- Total actively practicing professionals: the number of individuals licensed and practicing in Indiana
- Specialties: the areas of focus these professionals reported
- Primary practice setting: the environments in which these professionals work
- Services provided: the most common services these professionals offer to patients
- Populations served: the groups these professionals report working with most frequently
- Where professionals obtained their education: the geographic location where these professionals completed their qualifying degrees or training
These data can be used to understand the composition, distribution, and characteristics of Indiana’s PA workforce. They can inform workforce planning, policy decisions, and strategies to address service gaps across the state.
The workforce snapshot also includes a map illustrating the geographic distribution of all PAs across Indiana’s 92 counties, according to data collected during the 2024 license renewal cycle.
How to Read the Map
Counties are color-coded based on the ratio of the total population per one professional full-time equivalent (FTE). This measure indicates how many people each professional serves in a given county.
- Darker blue counties have fewer people per PA, indicating greater workforce availability.
- Lighter blue counties have more people per PA, indicating lower workforce availability.
- Gray counties have zero PAs.
View the full PA workforce snapshot below.