All Entries Tagged With: "allied health professionals"
National Nurse Practitioner Week highlights primary care shortage
If you haven’t already heard about it from the nurse practitioners (NP) at your organization, this week is National Nurse Practitioner (NP) Week. NPs are harnessing their spotlight to shine the light on the shortage of primary care providers in America—and how their work force can help combat that shortage.
The theme for the week is “Nurse Practitioners – 125,000 Solutions to the Primary Care Shortage.” The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) offers a resource guide on its Web site explaining why this year’s theme was chosen.
“The shortage of primary care providers is a hot topic in the healthcare reform debate. NP Week is a good opportunity to showcase the many ways that NPs are the primary care providers of choice for many patients and to let others in your community know about the value of NP-delivered primary care,” the AANP states.
Be sure to wish the NPs on your medical staff a happy National Nurse Practitioner’s Week!
Take our NP/PA terminology poll
We have many blogs at HCPro written for coders, nurses, residents, and more. Today, I’m highlighting a terminology poll on our Hospitalist Leadership blog that may be of interest to MSPs.
You may have already read about this blog in our weekly ezine, the Credentialing Resource Center Connection. If not, head over to our sister blog share with others your NP and PA terminology.
Sound booth: Setting the record straight on PA and LIP terminology
Patricia Spurlock, assistant director of professional affairs at the American Academy of Physician Assistants in Alexandria, VA, sets the record straight on a PA’s scope of practice.
Listen to her explain how the phrase LIP can be misused when it comes to PAs:
To learn more about PAs, including professional trends that may affect the credentialing office, check out the July issue of Briefings on Credentialing, available online in mid-June.
How would your medical staff react?
I wonder how the medical staff would react if the governing board appointed a non-physician practitioner to the medical staff. According to Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services’ Conditions of Participation, this is within the governing board’s authority:
482.22(a) Standard: Composition of the Medical Staff
Interpretive Guidelines: Furthermore, the governing body has the authority, in accordance with state law, to appoint some types of non-physician practitioners, such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and midwives, to the medical staff.
It seems to me this could cause quite an interesting situation. Do you think this could happen at your facility?
Carole La Pine, MSA, CPMSM, CPCS