Nurse Practitioners, PA’s and expanding access to care

Health
1

They were created to expand access to care however they’re often not doing this, instead it’s done as a “quick way into medicine” without the thousands of hours of training doctors need to have.

Solution:
To stay true to their original purpose, they should be required to see patients with Medicaid, Medicare, low income, and/or be required to serve X years providing care to places with limited access to care such as rural America.

Too often you find NPs and PAs instead starting ketamine clinics in big cities, testosterone clinics, IV vitamin clinics and med spas, and cash practices. It’s no longer about access to care and all about money instead, the very much abbreviated path into medicine has been exploited

2

What are you going to do with everyone already in the field? Both my primary care physician and my neurologist are NPs. Does this mean that next time I need to go in I’m going to have to find a new physician? Because I’d be pissed. And what about people with these clinics? They’ve utilized capitalism to create financial security for themselves. What so many people refer to as the “American dream”. What happens when this business with a lease contract or mortgage all of a sudden has no physicians because the people who were licensed and willing to work are now banned from working there for years? Who takes that financial burden? The person who just lost their job because of a ridiculous law? The owner of the building? The bank? Tax payers?

3

Your primary care physician is an NP? By definition they’re not a physician.

You just said your are seeing NPs. They are not physicians even though they often don white coats and confuse people.

Requiring them to take on Medicare, Medicaid, and practicing in areas of need is the opposite of what you just said and the whole reason NPs and PAs were created.

Also NPs and PAs are often not used safely and instead are used to maximize profit by hiring a cheaper clinician while patients think they’re seeing a doctor. Meanwhile the quality of care is subpar, check out r/noctor to see for yourself