Yesterday, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Sandeep Jauhar questioning the New York state legislature’s passage of a bill allowing more independence for nurse practitioners. The author, a doctor himself, claims that allowing nurse practitioners to work independently would not save money and would result in lower quality care. In his opinion, the answer to the question of too few primary care doctors is not to allow competition from those with less education, but to raise their pay.
My forthcoming Working Papers column in the Summer issue of Regulation will describe a paper by occupational licensing expert Morris Kleiner et al. that disputes these claims. In his September 2013 paper, Kleiner et al. find that in states that allow nurse practitioners to independently practice and write prescriptions, the fees charged for services are lower while health care quality, as measured by changes in the infant mortality rate and malpractice insurance premiums, is not affected.