{{ Instead, nurse practitioners have become major gap fillers, growing their ranks by 60% to 461,000 between 2019 and 2025, data from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners show. Physician assistants who can fill similar roles are also in high demand, as are other non-MD health providers. }}
I seem to remember JLC complaining that Nurse Anesthetists and Certified Anesthesiology Assistants are allowed to do 80% of the high-reimbursement work previously reserved for a real doctor. But I suspect that any savings accrues to Private Equity rather than the patient.
Don’t know what the percentage is, all I know is that non-MDs are constantly lobbying for more and more “freedom”, i.e., less medical supervision. Just to show you how comical it has gotten, where I used to practice, the state was cracking down on MDs writing narcotic prescriptions. Ok, fair enough. Then, at the same time, was expanding NPs ability to write narcotic prescriptions. Crazy. But then again, politicians aren’t smart nor. logical.
As always, I’ve worked with excellent “physician extenders” and poor MDs and vice versa. The training is not the same and what they don’t know can kill you.