Prescriptive Authority for Nurse Practitioners

The physician shortage in primary care, plus the growth of nurse practitioners and increasing need for access to health care, creates a necessity for more autonomous nurse practitioners. However, current restrictions on nurse practitioners, particularly prescription regulations for controlled substances, limit what practitioners can do for patients. These restrictions also increase wait times for patients and have the potential to increase liability claims as physicians prescribe medications for patients they have not adequately evaluated. Specialties Advanced Article

You are reading page 4 of Prescriptive Authority for Nurse Practitioners

Specializes in Critical Care.

I think that both NPs and PAs are moving in a similar direction.

PAs are:

1. Moving in a direction which will eventually have post grad fellowships and specialty certification tests. (very early in process)

2. Are trying to make gains on supervision requiremnts, which will ideally move toward "collaboration" not "supervising". This is more of a word change for many states, where PAs can even practice in different cites than their supervising physician.

3. Fighting for full prescriptive rights. (C2-5)

NPs are:

1. Streamlining certifications

2. Fighting for "full scope" of practice, and full prescriptive rights. (C2-5)

3. DNP will not effect scope as much as people may think it will.

Though none of us can know where we will end up years down the line, I think both will have clear specialty certifications, though the lines will still blur with family practice PAs and FNPs. Both will be more independent, and PAs will get more freedom with billing for medicare/medicaid where NPs have an edge now. Both will be involved in primary care practices, where all patients are seen by NPs/PAs and they are interchangeable. Physician limits on how many PA/NP they can supervise will rise, and one or a few MDs at the top of the food chain take on more of a management role and go over charts as well. Most specialties will not change as much since surgical specialties have limits on scope for NP/PA that probably will not change. Room for growth is likely in Psych, where NP's will most likely begin to take over with MD at the top like in family practice. Of course some new laws will lead to outlier NP's who do manage to open a practice, or something else, but for the most part, life for the average PA/NP will progress in a similar direction.