Nurse practitioners increasingly fill gap in primary care delivery, study finds

Dive Brief:

• With an ongoing physician shortage, primary care practices are increasingly turning to nurse practitioners and other interdisciplinary provider scenarios to fill the care delivery void, a new study in Health Affairs finds.
• In 2016, NPs represented a quarter of the provider workforce in rural practices and 23% in nonrural practices — up from 17.6% and 15.9%, respectively, in 2008.
• NPs were most prevalent in states with full scope-of-practice laws. However, the fastest growth was seen in states with reduced and restricted scopes of practice.

The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates a shortfall of as many as 105,000 doctors by 2030. In primary care, that number could...

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