On May 6th, our representatives will vote on whether nurse practitioners should be allowed to practice independently. The bill is named HB 864. While nurse practitioners are valued members of the healthcare team, it is dangerous to ignore the wide gap in preparation between a nurse practitioner and a physician.

The differences in training are vast. In regards to education, nurse practitioners attend 2 years of training beyond the level of an RN. For many, these 2 years can be completed mostly online at schools with 100 percent acceptance rates. The clinical requirements can be as low as 500 hours of training. Nurse practitioners are only required to take 1 certification exam before being licensed to practice.

Physicians, on the other hand, attend 4 years of medical school and generally have 5,000-6,000 hours of clinical experience by graduation. Following graduation, these new physicians go on to train in an accredited residency program for 3-7 years. At minimum, a physician must complete 4 very difficult exams for licensure. Only following completion of a residency program can a physician practice independently in their given specialty. There are real consequences to being allowed full autonomy with a lack of adequate preparation.

A recent study examining 220,000 primary care providers showed that nurse practitioners were more than twice as likely than physicians to inappropriately prescribe opioids (1). Other studies have revealed that they are more likely to unnecessarily prescribe antibiotics (2), more likely to inappropriately refer the patient out to other practitioners (3), and more likely to order imaging for patients (4), exposing them to undue radiation. This is not the safe, cost-effective care that your constituents need and deserve. It is for these reasons that I am urging you to vote no on HB 864. It is in the best interest of patients, their loved ones and the healthcare system as a whole.