For Some Nurse Practitioners, State Laws Pose a Challenge [MO]
"Nurse practitioners have been a part of Missouri's health care scene for the past fifty years. The state has a shortage of primary care doctors, but state laws restrict nurse practitioners from filling that void.
Few nurse practitioners find a way to open their own practice with these restrictions in place.
By Missouri law, nurse practitioners have to collaborate with a physician within a certain radius of their jobs -- 30 miles in an urban area or 50 miles in a rural one. Collaborating physicians must read and sign patients' charts and prescribe certain medications.
Many...patients drive an hour to see her because seeing a nurse practitioner...offers certain advantages they can't find at a doctor's office--like more face time, and some alternative healing practices."