Pd. Jacobson et al., Nurse practitioners and physician assistants as primary care providers in institutional settings, INQUIRY-J H, 35(4), 1998, pp. 432-446
Citations number
40
Categorie Soggetti
Public Health & Health Care Science","Health Care Sciences & Services
Journal title
INQUIRY-THE JOURNAL OF HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATION PROVISION AND FINANCING
This paper describes the scope of primary care practice and autonomy of nur
se practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) at nine health mainte
nance organizations (HMOs) and multispecialty clinics (MSCs). We found that
the larger an institution's managed care population, the greater the NPs'
and PAs' scope of practice and autonomy, although patients with complex ill
nesses or multisystem problems usually were refer-red directly to a physici
an. Alternative policies to increase the number of primary care physicians
might slow the growth in hiring new NPs and PAs, but are unlikely to reduce
their primary care role in managed care settings. Further research is need
ed to consider whether these results are applicable to a broader range of p
ractice settings.