Does Scope of Practice Affect Mobility of Nurse Practitioners Serving Medicare Beneficiaries?

14 Pages Posted: 12 Aug 2020

See all articles by Shishir Shakya

Shishir Shakya

Appalachian State University

Alicia Plemmons

West Virginia University

Date Written: July 14, 2020

Abstract

The shortage of nurse practitioners (NPs) in the United States has broadly decreased access, decreased quality, and increased cost of care for an aging population in both metro and rural areas. Some state policymakers are trying to address the shortage by expanding NPs' scope of practice (that is, their autonomy to order tests, to prescribe medications, to diagnose patients, and to initiate and manage treatments). We estimate the impact of expanded NP scope of practice on the mobility decisions of NPs serving Medicare beneficiaries. Since these expansions have been at the state level, it is important for policy evaluation to know whether the legal differences in NPs' roles affect where they decide to both live and practice. We identify NPs' location decisions between 2014 and 2017 by gleaning their National Provider Identifiers from Part D Prescriber Public Use File data. Then we examine whether NPs' movement from restrictive-practice to full-practice states increased over time. We find that in a given year, NPs in restrictive-practice states are both 0.46 percent more likely to move out of state (compared to NPs in other states) and 5.33 percent less likely to move to other restrictive states than to nonrestrictive states. Our estimates demonstrate NPs' preference for practicing in states with full scope of practice.

Keywords: Scope of practice, nurse practitioners, regulation, mobility

JEL Classification: J44, I18, H75

Suggested Citation

Shakya, Shishir and Plemmons, Alicia, Does Scope of Practice Affect Mobility of Nurse Practitioners Serving Medicare Beneficiaries? (July 14, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3651399 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3651399

Shishir Shakya

Appalachian State University ( email )

Boone, NC 28607
United States

HOME PAGE: http://shishirshakya.github.io/

Alicia Plemmons (Contact Author)

West Virginia University ( email )

P.O. Box 6025
Morgantown, WV 26506
United States

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