Scope of Practice Laws Impact Nurse Practitioners

In Many Communities, Nurse Practitioners Fill An Important Void by Chrisine Vestal, Stateline/Kaiser Health News.  December 6, 2012.

Using Buckingham County, Virginia as a case study, this article explores one aspect of the difficulties posed by the fact that there are 5,800 communities with a shortage of primary care physicians.  With extended coverage to 30 million more people in 2014, the problem is only going to get worse.  Additional physicians can only provide part of the solution.  Increasingly states are seeing nurse practitioners as a resource to address this physician supply problem.  However, scope of practice laws limit the independence of these nurses and therefore their ability to address the shortage.   Political tensions with doctors groups impact regulatory rules concerning the independence of nurses.   In Virginia in 2011 a new law was passed aimed at improving patient access to primary care cross that state.  The issues raised by this law, especially doctor supervision and required consultation in "complex" case, are a major concerns addressed in this article.