Recent evaluations of healthcare policy changes indicate that granting independent practice authority to non-physician clinicians like NPs often fails to achieve the goal of increasing community access to essential medical services, especially primary care. While some legislative efforts are framed as solutions to primary care shortages, data reveals that a significant majority of practitioners with expanded autonomy choose to operate in specialized or elective fields, such as aesthetic medicine or cardiology, rather than in frontline roles. This shift highlights the necessity of maintaining a system where the most highly trained medical professionals–physicians–remain central to patient diagnosis and treatment.
One of our leaders and founders, Rebekah Bernard, MD, was quoted by the AMA in their review of this topic, which examined a Florida law designed to increase primary care access through NP independence.
Dr. Bernard said: “The reasoning behind the bill is that NPs are supposed to be able to manage low-risk, straightforward conditions…. I’m a primary care doctor, and I understand how hard it is to do good, high-quality primary care. It was very frustrating when our legislators decided to enact primary care unsupervised practice for nurse practitioners under the guise of, ‘There’s a primary care shortage; they will fill the gap.’ So we now have a huge number of NPs, but my phone is still ringing off the hook from people looking for a primary care doctor.”
Leveraging our research, the AMA covered this important topic in depth and emphasized a key conclusion: “Looking at the issue more broadly, nationwide data from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners shows that 89% of NPs are trained and certified in primary care, yet multiple workforce studies show that only one-quarter to one-third practice in primary care.”
You might also be interested in...