If you think about scope-of-practice creep at all, you may think immediately of the advocacy efforts so many of us in ASA have made to preserve physician-led care and discourage independent practice by nurse anesthetists.
You may not have worried as much about the current momentum to grant independent practice to nurse practitioners, or NPs, nationwide (asamonitor.pub/3eoqLvK).
In addition to the District of Columbia, 28 states allow NPs full practice authority to treat and prescribe without formal oversight. Half of these states grant NPs full practice authority as soon as they gain their licenses; the other half allow it after the NP practices with physician oversight for a period of time.
My home state, California, is one of the states that has always required physician oversight. Last fall, however, Governor Newsom signed a bill, Assembly Bill 890, that will allow NPs to practice independently after they have...
