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New law allows NPs to treat without supervision
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Posted on Mar 23 2009
Gov. Benigno Fitial signed into law yesterday a bill allowing nurse practitioners to prescribe medications and treat conditions within their scope of practice without doctor supervision.
Public Law 16-34 amends an earlier law, allowing nurse practitioners to diagnose and prescribe within their scope as defined by the Nursing Board.
Arley Gutierrez-Long, the advanced practice registered nurse at the Tinian Health Center, said the main focus of the law is to give the Nursing Board Examiners the ability to govern nurse practitioners and provide regulations. Regulations have never been standardized and followed, she said.
The new law is cost effective, she added. Medicaid and Medicare reimburse 85 to 95 percent for mid-level practitioners. Availability is also critical. By 2025, there is expected to be a substantial shortage of physicians and this will help the CNMI prepare for that in the long term, she said.
During testimony at the Legislature in February, Ben Aldan, president of the Saipan Health Clinic, raised concerns about the creation of the regulations. Aldan urged the lawmakers to set their own definitions because the composition of the Nursing Board changes every year. He said he was trying to be cautious.
“It’s so easy to prescribe something and find out it’s really bad for the patient later on,” he said.
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee, in its report recommending the bill’s passage, cited the difficulty of recruiting physicians and the lack of staff at the hospital and other health centers in the CNMI.
The report said health care is severely disrupted when a doctor goes on vacation or abruptly leaves, which has happened many times.
There are more than 125,000 NPs practicing in the United States and 88 percent have graduate degrees, according to the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.
