Under Obamacare, this might be the only choice.
Via Miami Herald
With a massive shortage of primary care physicians across Florida, state lawmakers are pushing a bill to expand the powers of nurse practitioners, allowing them to prescribe controlled substances like painkillers and work without supervision from a doctor.
The bill’s champion, Rep. Cary Pigman, is an emergency room physician who has supervised nurse practitioners for most of his career. He says Florida has thousands of trained nurse practitioners who can help fill the gap. But the Florida Medical Association and many independent doctors have spoken out against the bill, saying even nurses with advanced training need a doctor’s supervision.
Nurse practitioners, who have a two-year degree beyond the requirements of registered nurses, currently must work under the supervision of a physician and sometimes must pay the doctor a fee. Also covered under the proposal are clinical nurse specialists, nurse anesthetists and nurse midwives, who have similar advanced training.
Pigman, an Avon Park Republican, said the current supervision mandate “is a sham” and so loose that “I could be supervising a nurse practitioner working in Okeechobee 350 miles away and I could get paid for that.”
The bill would establish standards for advanced practice registered nurses but it does not increase their scope of practice beyond their training, Pigman said. Patients with serious medical problems would be referred to physicians. Currently, 17 states and the District of Columbia give nurse practitioners full autonomy and 21 give partial autonomy, according the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Florida, California and Texas are among the states with strict limits on nurse practitioners.