Practice acts (ie, what we are allowed to do legally) for Nurse Practitioners vary across the country. Many now have practice acts that allows Nurse Practitioners to practice autonomously, which is a good thing as NPs should be able to practice to the extent of the educations preparation and experience. Even the Institute of Medicine’s report attests to that.
However, Nurse Practitioners in Florida have been faced with lots of challenges. One of them has to do with prescriptive rights.
The following interview was done on a local Florida station interviewing Jennifer Scott, NP. Take a listen to what she has to say. Feel free to spread the word.
You can learn more about Jennifer and what’s going on in Florida at her blog www.ARNP.blogspot.com.
By the way, this years annual conference for the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, the largest NP conference in the country is set to unleash thousands of NPs in Florida. The possibilities can be endless!
Thanks so much for your support Barbara. We will continue the fight until we win the battle.
Nurse Practitioners in Florida work well with one another and Physicians. Your analogies were excellent! Nurse Practitioner see patients independent of Physicians, but in most instances are restrained from maximizing our potential.
Most Physicians do not review patient charts or direct prescribing of medications
of persons treated by a Nurse Practitioner (especially in an office or community setting).
According to an article published 2010 in the Journal of American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, one NP can generate approximately $233,000 annually seeing 15 to 20 patients per day in private practice over 45 weeks.
A similar message is recorded through blog talk radio with Dr Erica 🙂