Fierce Healthcare: Nurse Practitioners Seek Insurer Credentials to Practice Primary Care

Insurer exclusion major barrier to independent practices 

Jack Budryk, September 10, 2013

To help meet the growing need for primary care services, nurse practitioners are asking the Obama administration to require insurers to credential them, Kaiser Health News reports. 

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates approximately half of the nation's nurse practitioners (NPs) work in physicians' offices. According to Deanna Tolman, an Aurora, Colo.-area advanced practice nurse, many NPs do not go into business for themselves because it's hard to get insurers to include them. "We're in this gray area: Insurers are fine with us providing care as long as we're working for physicians. But some of us don't want to work for physicians,"  Tolman told Kaiser Health News

Read the rest at fiercehealthcare.com.