Nurse Practitioners Are the Rx for Health Care
Your article was a needed piece to inform the public about nurse practitioners; however, your sub-headline was misleading in saying “Mary Jones . . . is one of the state’s few nurse practitioners.”
As of Oct. 1, 5,494 NPs are licensed by the California Board of Registered Nursing, and 1,360 of these have obtained their “furnishing numbers,” qualifying them to furnish (prescribe) drugs.
It is true that Jones is one of a handful of NPs in independent practice. Now that NPs can qualify for some third-party reimbursements from Medicare, MediCal and some insurance payments, more may branch out into solo practice with agreements with physicians for referrals.
It appears inevitable, given the attention paid the imperfect health-care system in this country, that the role of the nurse practitioner will continue to increase in the future.
RONNI G. BERGMAN
President, Los Angeles Chapter
National Assn. of Pediatric Nurse
Associates and Practitioners
