Two health care groups wage a battle over turf [PA]
Posted almost 10 years ago by Nicholas M Perrino
"Hundreds of thousands of people who may have only stepped inside an emergency room for health care will soon have coverage for a visit to the doctor's office. That's because the transition to Medicaid expansion becomes official in Pennsylvania this month.
With all these new patients, who will take care of them?
Nurse practitioners in the state are making the case they should be at least part of the answer. But a powerful doctor's group is pushing back.
Regulations require physicians, and only physicians, sign some paperwork, like worker's comp forms, or physical therapy prescriptions for Medicare patients. They also have to be on-call for nurse practitioners.
All of this can cost up to $1,000 a month. The head of the state Coalition of Nurse Practitioners, Lorraine Boch, says the arrangement simply isn't needed.
'Nurse practitioners are not going to stop talking to our colleagues in medicine, to our colleagues in the hospital, to our colleagues in the pharmacy, just because we are not tethered to a physician by a collaborative agreement,' says Boch.
Boch's group wants the state to drop the requirement and let NPs practice on their own.
She adds: 'We're telling this story right now because patients need access to health care. It's a great thing that those people are getting health insurance, but if they can't get an appointment with a provider to utilize that health insurance, their health can't improve.'
If nurse practitioner Mike Lawler practiced in Maryland, he wouldn't need the so-called collaborative agreement.
In fact, 20 states give nurse practitioners full authority.
'You can't argue with almost half of the country having independent practice for nurse practitioners,' says Lawler. 'And then all of a sudden saying 'Oh wait, both of your feet are in Pennsylvania, come here for a second, you can't actually practice independently. I know if you go over to that state, you can but over here we don't think you can do it all the way.''"