Please respond to your peer’s posts, from an FNP perspective. To ensure that your responses are substantive, use at least two of these prompts:
- Do you agree with your peers’ assessment?
- Take an opposing view to a peer and present a logical argument supporting an alternate opinion.
- Share your thoughts on how you support their opinion and explain why.
- Present new references that support your opinions.
Please be sure to validate your opinions and ideas with in text-citations and references in APA format. Substantive means that you add something new to the discussion, you aren’t just agreeing. Be respectful and thoughtful.This is also a time to ask questions or offer information surrounding the topic addressed by your peers. Personal experience is appropriate for a substantive discussion and should be correlated to the literature.Minimum of 100 words.
Jodi’s Post:
How does health promotion integrate within the Affordable Care Act? What opportunities and challenges do you anticipate related to this integration?
As nurses we have been in the front lines of health promotion. Much of our time is spent educating patients about wellness and disease prevention. Nurses play an important role in promoting public health. Traditionally, the focus of health promotion by nurses has been on disease prevention and changing the behavior of individuals with respect to their health. However, their role as promoters of health is more complex, since they have multi-disciplinary knowledge and experience of health promotion in their nursing practice. It is important to have health insurance that support women’s health and prevention. The Affordable Care Act helps to make prevention affordable by requiring most private health insurance plans to cover recommended prevention and wellness benefits without cost-sharing. Insurers must now cover mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, prenatal care, flu and pneumonia shots, and regular well-baby and well-child visits with no cost-sharing. An estimated 20.4 million women are currently receiving expanded preventive services without cost-sharing because of the Affordable Care Act. Starting in August 2012, additional recommended preventive services including well-woman visits, screening for gestational diabetes, domestic violence screening, breastfeeding supplies, and contraceptive services will be covered by health plans with no cost-sharing. Eliminating such barriers as copayments, co-insurance, and deductibles will increase access to services that improve the health of women and their children. For example, prenatal care helps improve maternal health and birth outcomes (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2012).
Works Cited
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. (2012, March 20). The Affordable Care Act and Women . Retrieved from ASPE: https://aspe.hhs.gov/report/affordable-care-act-an…
Charli’sPost:
- In the AANP (2012) Health policy brief: Nurse practitioners and primary care: “advocates say changes in federal and state laws are needed to remove barriers to the provision of primary care by nurse practitioners. By contrast, some physician groups are opposed” (p. 3). What are the professional implications of this statement? What are the practice requirements in your state? Why is it important for advanced practice nurses to remain aware of and engage in health policy.
There is need in many states for primary care providers. Although there is a need, physicians are still reluctant about nurse practitioners stepping in and having full scope of practice (Ackerman, 2017). Many states require nurse practitioners to get “signed off” by a physician. Physicians feel like they have done more schooling and they are more qualified for this position, but nurse practitioners are just as qualified as many studies have shown (Ackerman, 2017). Nurse practitioners in primary care that require sign off causes a delay in treatment and services that are being provided to the patient. For example, patients that need medical equipment can not get their equipment until a physician signs off on it if a NP orders it. Allowing Nurse practitioners to have full scope of practice, these problems could be avoided. Working together could also lower costs of medical costs and medications that would make it more affordable for patients.
Allowing NP’s to have full scope of practice would free up the time of the physicians. Instead of them having to review charts, medications, therapeutics, and labs ordered by the NP, they can focus on their patients and their own tasks (Ackerman, 2017). This would result in better patient care and satisfaction.
In the state of Michigan, the supervision of a physician is require. All tasks and functions must fall under the NP’s scope of practice. They are allowed to prescribed nonscheduled drugs without a physician, but can only prescribe Schedules II-V controlled substances if delegated by the supervising physician. They are also not explicitly recognized in the state policy as primary care providers. I hope this will change, as I want to work in primary care and have full scope of practice. Nurse practitioners have so much to bring to the table and are more cost effective for organizations to hire.
It is important for nurse practitioners to know the policy and to make sure they are practicing in their own scope of practice. In many offices, nurse practitioners create a relationship with the physician and they become comfortable with the NP writing orders and creating a plan of care without really reviewing their orders. The NP should make sure they are still practicing in their scope of practice in case any legal issues come up. Being involved can help NP’s push towards being more independent as practitioners and help physicians realize there is a need for primary care providers besides themselves. We need to be active in creating this change to be able to reach our full potential as providers.
References
Ackerman, M. Doctors and nurse practitioners have to stop fighting. (2017). KevinMD. Retrieved from https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2017/06/doctors-nurse-practitioners-stop-fighting.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.
Michigan scope of practice policy: State policy. (2019). Scope of Practice Policy. Retrieved from scopeofpracticepolicy.org/states.mi/
