KFF Health News June 17, 2024
If your doctor can’t see you now, maybe the nurse practitioner can.
Nurse practitioners have long been a reliable backstop for the primary-care-physician shortfall, which is estimated at nearly 21,000 doctors this year and projected to get worse.
But easy access to NPs could be tested in coming years. Even though nearly 90 percent of nurse practitioners are certified to work in primary care, only about a third choose the field, according to a recent study.
Health-care workforce experts worry that NPs are being lured toward work in specialty practices for the same reason that some doctors steer clear of primary care: money.
“We get what we pay for,” said Candice Chen, an associate professor of health policy and management...
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