To be fair, Evers does everything for political reasons irrespective of the underlying policy implications. He’s consistent like that.
The president of the Wisconsin Board of Nursing resigned to protest Gov. Tony Evers’ veto of legislation to allow registered nurses to be licensed as advanced practice nurses.
In his resignation letter, Dr. Peter Kallio wrote the “veto appeared politically motivated to appease a small group of doctors who want to dictate nursing practice and that, unfortunately, makes this Board of Nursing ineffective.” He accused Evers of “a pure disregard for our profession.”
His term was set to expire in July. Kallio also resigned from the Controlled Substances Board.
SB 394 would’ve allowed advanced practice nurse practitioners to issue prescription orders, among other things.
As a consumer of healthcare, I prefer my NP or PA to have those specific grad degrees, to have passed their state licensing exams, and to have obtained their DEA license. That gap in education from RN to NP is not a small one. Don’t let the similar sounding titles fool you.
Can they hire a RN at half the price? Yep. Will you receive the same quality of care? Maybe, depending upon your complaint. Would you pay half the price of having seen a physician, PA, or NP? Nope.
>Would you pay half the price of having seen a physician, PA, or NP? Nope.
Funny how that works, eh? I’ve seen a Dr for some orthopedic things, and I’ve also seen his NP…. and the bill is identical regardless of whom took care of me. You would think the Dr’s would be all for this, allowing their cheaper labor to handle more patients at the lower labor rate!
My ex first got her associates degree to to.become an RN in Wisconsin. Then she got her bachelor’s degree for RN. Then she took classes and became a nurse practioner and coordinates with a real doctor for treatment.
So, what is wrong with that?
Merlin, I don’t really know much about this so could you clarify? Does this essentially mean that Evers was right to veto this, in your opinion? I like to keep track of that sort of thing:).
T:
It’s basically a medical profession turf war over nursing licensing, specifically for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses. The article cited was rather void of details, but I did muddle my way through most of the bill. Even that is hard to comprehend if you don’t have someone directly involved in that business who can explain the difference between current requirements and the proposed requirements.
Evers’ objected to what he perceived as a relaxation of current standards that might have the effect of putting too much distance between a patient and a physician. In a rural area with little or no access to an actual MD an APRN or two can be golden to a community that would otherwise lack a viable source of quality healthcare. Conversely, in an urban setting major healthcare providers might be tempted to pack a lot of those cheaper APRNs between patients and their considerably more expensive MDs. Evers is a Dem, so he knows as well as anyone that if something can be gamed, it will.
This argument is far from over.