Dr. Crippen probably won’t be happy about this:
Nurse practitioners are gaining broader acceptance by health insurers and medical regulators. In Iowa, Oregon and a dozen other states, nurse practitioners can operate without doctors’ collaboration or supervision. Most states allow the nurses to prescribe the vast majority of drugs, with the exception of controlled substances such as narcotics.
Medicare, the U.S. insurance program for the elderly and disabled, reimburses nurse practitioners who bill independently at 85 percent of the amounts paid to doctors, a limitation set by Congress. In New York, Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, pays the nurses 100 percent of M.D. fees.
