Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice and Patient Harm: Evidence from Medical Malpractice Cases and Adverse Action Reports / Sara Markowitz, Andrew J.D. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Markowitz, Sara.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Smith, Andrew J.D.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w31109.

NBER working paper series no. w31109

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2023.

Summary:

Many states have recently changed their scope of practice laws and granted full practice authority to nurse practitioners, allowing them to practice without oversight from physicians. Physician groups have argued against this change, citing patient safety concerns. In this paper, we use a ratio-in-ratio approach to evaluate whether the transition to full practice authority results in harm to patients as proxied by rates of malpractice payouts and adverse action reports against nurse practitioners. We find no evidence of such harm, and instead find that physicians may benefit from the law change in terms of reduced malpractice payouts against them.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2023.