In a recent post to the Wall Street Journal's blog, titled ''Internet Visits With Doctors Can Beat Office Appointments,'' a physician makes the case for offering consultations online. ''I think 20% of my routine office visits could be handled safely and less expensively over the Internet. There is nothing magical about the four office walls ...

An editorialist for The Washington Times wrote an article about the DNP last week that makes some interesting points worth pondering. In Dane Stangler's ''Doctor nurse will see you now,'' he says he believes the DNP is a bad idea, mainly because with a requirement for more education, the number of NPs will decline: Today, we no longer face a ...

Members of the ADVANCE for Nurse Practitioners staff, namely myself and Managing and Web Editor Jill Rollet, are in attendance at the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) conference in National Harbor, Maryland. Over 3,500 inquisitive NPs are bustling about the grandiose new Gaylord on the Potomac resort and ...

With any large new program that seeks to change how thingshave always been done, you're going to find some naysayers. The call to makethe doctor of nursing practice degree the credential for entry to the NP professionhas plenty of skeptics. Experienced NPs who don't already have a DNP worry about thecosts in time and money of pursuing the degree. ...

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune published a story today titled ''A Doctor and a Nurse, All in One Package.'' The article explains the doctorate of nursing practice rather well, touting the effectivemness of NP and DNP care: According to Delaney, there is already an 80 percent overlap between what nurse practitioners do and what primary ...

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 ...

We can keep pointing out the differences between NPs and physician assistants, but other health care professionals often want to speak about the two groups together. When they do, they encounter a language problem. Instead of referring to the single group as ''NPs and PAs,'' they often opt for phrases many NPs (and PAs) find offensive, such as ...

Although I am reluctant to admit it, I am guilty of occasionally using medical jargon in everyday vernacular, especially when it comes to behavioral health. We are accustomed to hearing practitioners freely say, ''he's so ADD'' or no doubt that she is ''on the spectrum.'' This is not to suggest that this is necessarily wrong; it may just be a ...

Conventional wisdom says that NPs shouldn't rely on an employer-provided malpractice policy. The reasoning is this: The responsibility of an insurance provider is to the person or entity who pays for the policy. In a lawsuit that names both the NP and an employer who pays for her or his liability coverage, the NP's interests may be sacrificed if ...