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Board clears Optum physician assistant for Mississippi license limited to administrative utilization review
Summary
The executive committee granted an exception allowing Robert "Bobby" Green to obtain Mississippi licensure to perform administrative utilization review duties for Optum, provided his collaboration agreement restricts him to non‑clinical review work.
The Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure—s executive committee approved an exception that allows physician assistant Robert "Bobby" Green to hold a Mississippi license for the limited purpose of performing administrative utilization review for Optum, provided his supervising agreement restricts his practice to non‑clinical review duties.
Green and his supervisor, Gina Marshall, told the committee Green has been a PA for 20 years with 14 years in neurosurgery and six years with UnitedHealth/Optum in utilization management. He explained he has not performed clinical care since about February 2019 and that the role he seeks is an adjudicative post‑service claims review role rather than direct patient care.
Marshall said Optum requires an unrestricted primary license to hire for the position but said the employer can document the scope of work and a supervising physician will review denials and sign off on a percentage of cases. "We have 6 physicians out of a team of 78 physicians who have Mississippi license. We would put him with an individual licensee, if he gets his license, and they would ... sign off on 50% or more of his cases on top of every denial," Marshall told the committee.
Board members discussed the lack of an administrative PA classification in Mississippi and agreed the board could grant an exception if Green—s collaboration agreement limited him to administrative utilization review and explicitly precluded direct clinical care in Mississippi. The motion to approve that exception, conditioned on a collaboration agreement spelling out the limitation, carried by voice vote.
The committee instructed staff to reflect the approved scope in licensing records and to require the collaboration agreement that limits Green to administrative duties.
