A patient is properly cared for by the nurse practitioner when the nurse practitioner is able to provide care that is based on the individualized needs of the patient. The nurse practitioner is able to assess the patient’s condition and create a plan of care that is specific to the patient’s needs. The nurse practitioner is also able to provide education to the patient and family members about the plan of care and what they can do to help the patient get better.
In 2017, 29.1% of beneficiaries received care from a nurse practitioner, and 8.0% used nurse practitioners as their primary care providers. Physician-nurse practitioner collaboration is critical for meeting the complex needs of Medicare beneficiaries while also providing high-quality care at a comparable rate. Patients like this have high health care costs and may require more intensive and frequent care, putting additional strain on primary care providers. Nurses provide patients with comparable levels of care to that provided by physicians, according to research. However, nurse practitioners, on the other hand, continue to disagree on the role of nurse practitioners in caring for patients with complex health needs. We compare trends from 2012 to 2017 in the number of Medicare beneficiaries who receive primary care from nurse practitioners. We used an innovative method to link Medicare fee-for-service claims with OneKey, a health care analytic company’s database.
OneKey is a commercial database that allows users to view medical practices by their ownership relationships, the number of physicians in the group, and the composition of providers (specialty and professional). Beneficiaries were assigned to a doctor who delivered a variety of ambulatory visits. Beneficiaries were identified using claims filed in 2017 based on their demographic, geographic, and clinical characteristics. Explanation of benefits included mean age, gender, race, disabled status, and the beneficiary’s eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid. Area-level characteristics were determined by taking into account median household income, residents under the poverty line, and the city’s urban environment. An examination of the characteristics of the beneficiaries using HHSCs was carried out. Based on 2017 data from OneKey, we compared the following practice-level characteristics: the number of physicians, whether the practice included specialist physicians, or the type of system that owned the practice, for beneficiaries who used nurse practitioners or physicians as a predominant provider.
The researchers used linear regression to estimate service utilization in inpatient and outpatient settings based on beneficiary demographic and clinical characteristics, area-level poverty, income, and urbanicity, and HRR measurements. From 2012 to 2017, the proportion of Medicare beneficiaries receiving care from nurse practitioners increased steadily. More beneficiaries received care from nurse practitioners, especially those under the age of 65 (primarily disabled adults), those over the age of 85, and those who live in low-income or high-poverty areas. Original reason for Medicare entitlement was disability, dually eligible for Medicaid, and those who Over a million Medicare beneficiaries received some ambulatory care from a nurse practitioner in 2017, an increase of more than a million from the previous year. In the northwest and northeast, the highest proportion of beneficiaries have a nurse practitioner as their primary care provider. California, Hawaii, and Florida had the highest percentages of geographic dispersion and included other states with low percentages. According to a study, nurse practitioners frequently provide greater care to patients with complex clinical and social needs than physicians.
It is projected that the workforce of nurse practitioners will grow by 6,800% between 2016 and 2030. Rural and low-income communities are vulnerable to poor health care due to a lack of high-quality care provided by nurse practitioners. Patients who required more care as a result of their chronic conditions had a higher number of visits to a nurse practitioner. There may be a difference in the motivation of nurse practitioners to work in small and independent primary care practices. Because of provider shortages in areas of high need, nurse practitioners may be one option for filling care gaps. An ambulatory visit is a measurement of primary care based on the assumption that all qualifying visits by physicians, such as internists or cardiologists, and nurse practitioners were for services that could be classified as primary care. Concerns about the reimbursement rates of nurse practitioners may arise if they care for patients who are more clinically complex.
Medicare beneficiaries are increasingly receiving care from nurse practitioners. Preliminary findings from a poster session were presented during the AcademyHealth 2018 Annual Research Meeting in Seattle, Washington on June 27, 2018. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) received a grant of $U19024079 as part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Comparative Health System Performance Initiative. Authors do not have a conflict of interest in publishing their work. ” Borgenheim T,” Chen E,” Bennett HD,” Parekh AK,” Goodman RA,” and Gordon C.” The management of chronic conditions is a strategic approach to improving health outcomes and quality of life. Chronic diseases have increased Medicare spending in recent years, especially since 1987. The prevalence and intensity of chronic diseases have a significant impact on the rise in Medicare spending among beneficiaries.
Nonphysician teams, nonphysicians, and electronic communication could all be used to address physician shortages, according to Millwood. Examine whether nurse practitioners and primary care physicians can provide the same level of care. A physician assistant or nurse practitioner performs a critical role in the care of Medicare patients with diabetes. Primary care nurse practitioners, as demonstrated by their clinical productivity, in ambulatory settings. Xue Y, Tuttle J. How can health care teams improve primary care practice? In the Journal of the American Medical Association, 291:1246–1251. According to a series of articles published by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Millwood School of Medicine, nurse practitioners are an important part of the solution to the primary care crisis. Fewer patient-centered medical home processes are used in small and medium-sized medical practices than in large, multi-specialty practices.
