Senate Bill 2178 died Tuesday in the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee when Chairman Hob Bryan chose not to bring up the bill for discussion at the committee's last meeting on Monday.
The bill, which would have given full practice authority to nurse practitioners after 3 years of collaboration with a physician, is presumed to be dead for 2022.
MANY THANKS to all the physicians who called to voice their opinion on this bill. Senator Bryan said he had talked to many of his committee members and they had heard from a lot of physicians on the issue. If you'd like to hear what Bryan said about the bill during the meeting (video posted below), fast forward to the 21:40 mark. Selected quotes are below:
Sen Hob Bryan: "First of all, I think the existing situation is the worst of all possible worlds. We have a requirement which is called 'collaboration' which is in fact review of medical records after the fact is over. There is some benefit in that and I think it's done routinely, but it's not the way Noah Webster would define 'collaboration.' I don't know how that legislation came about; if I had to guess, I would guess it was an attempt by a previous legislature to reach a compromise and what they reached was, I think, not a very good one.
"Since we began having our hearings, and the purpose of the hearings -- and the reason one has hearings at least in my opinion, is to learn things one doesn't know -- and during the course of the hearings, I became concerned about several things, one of those being the education that advanced practice nurses receive. I do not believe it is standardized; I am very much concerned about the degrees that are granted by distant (sic) learning. I am concerned about the quality control with some of the degree-granting entities that are out there. And nothing during the course of the hearings has made me feel any better about that. I am particularly concerned about Walden University, which is an example of a school without high admission standards. That's not to say that there aren't people that finish that aren't very fine nurses but I don't believe there is quality control there.
"There are a number of people [on the committee] who believe the current system is untenable, and I believe that too."
Your calls made a difference. The MAFP Advocacy Committee thanks you and we will continue to keep you updated on legislative issues affecting family physicians and our patients.
