Give nurse practitioners leeway
Nurse practitioner Margaret O'Donnell in her office in Lynbrook in 2010 Credit: KEVIN P. COUGHLIN
Lots of patients who need medical attention don't need a physician. And lots of New Yorkers have trouble paying for health care. Nurse practitioners can help.
That's why we support a proposal in Albany to allow these pros to function without supervision by a doctor, something the legislature has already given midwives.
Nurse practitioners, who have master's degrees and advanced training, can already make diagnoses and prescribe drugs, but only under a collaborative agreement with a physician. Under a bill proposed by Assemb. Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) and Sen. Catharine Young (R-Olean), New York's 15,000 nurse practitioners could take care of patients without a physician's supervision -- like their counterparts in 16 other states and the District of Columbia.
New York is struggling with runaway Medicaid costs, and 2.6 million New Yorkers lack health insurance, making it hard for them to afford doctor bills. Under President Barack Obama's health care reforms, perhaps a million additional New Yorkers will access the health care system in 2014.
Freeing up nurse practitioners can help accommodate these new patients affordably. The Medical Society of the State of New York (a physicians' group) opposes the change, claiming it would somehow raise costs. That seems dubious; what's likelier is more competition for patients -- and more care for those who can least afford it. hN
