Last year at this time, I attended the signing of a key law expanding NP privileges in Pennsylvania. Milling about before the ceremony, I was buttonholed by a dental hygienist hoping to spread the word about the valuable work those practitioners do. Gov. Rendell was signing another law that day eliminating the legal requirement that dental ...

The article starts out promising good PR for nurse practitioners: ''Peggy O'Donnell, a Lynbrook nurse practitioner, knows a thing or two about picking a good primary care physician.'' This is O'Donnell's opportunity to explain that an NP often can be your primary care provider — and even better, that there are studies that show that NP care is ...

I have only anecdotal evidence, but it seems that there are a lot of new NP practices opening out there. In the past few weeks, I've received four Practice Snapshot surveys from NPs who've been in business just since the end of 2007 — two of whom I convinced to help me launch a private practice blog on this site, so stay tuned. I've also already ...

Angie's List has plans to let consumers rate their health care providers. The 12-year-old Indianapolis-based company maintains lists of consumer ratings for all kinds of local businesses and services. According to a company press release, the 600,000 list members have been asking for years to add health care providers, hospitals and insurers to ...

NPs wear many hats!  While I was speaking recently about legislation with Marie Lindsey, an NP who is co-chairperson for the reimbursement committee of the Illinois Society for Advanced Practice Nurses (and was the organization's first president), she mentioned that she also works at a clinic in Illinois. She ...

A recent survey by Deloitte revealed that Americans want health care to change. This may come as no surprise, but some of the study's findings, taken from a sample of 3,000 respondents, are of interest: 66% were in favor of a state-mandated health insurance. 34% say they would use a retail clinic; 16 percent already have. 60% want ...

Follow nurse practitioner Lois Wessel's lead and make national policy briefings your second job. Wessel wrote a touching and informative article for Tuesday's Washington Post, explaining her position at a mobile health clinic in Silver Spring, Md., and the barriers to care the U.S. health system throws up before her mostly immigrant patients. ...

Many changes have occurred since my last posting in December. After completing all clinical hours and classes for the pediatric NP program at Columbia University, I had 6 days to sell my furniture, to pack and ship boxes, and to get myself on a plane. Add to that the untimely death of my father-in-law in November, and the early departure of my ...

One important finding of the 2007 National Salary and Workplace Survey of Nurse Practitioners is that NP subspecialties have mushroomed, even since the 2005 survey. We asked NPs to choose their primary employment setting from a list of 22 choices, including ''other.'' Over the years, the setting choices have expanded in response to what survey ...

A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry opining that retail health clinics sell NPs short when they emphasize that NPs will treat only minor illnesses. A column by Mary O' Neil Mundinger in Forbes magazine may be the public relations remedy to that perception. Mundinger, who is dean of Columbia University's nursing school and who pioneered the ...