Letters in Support of SB 25 and HB 100 in Pennsylvania

On May 7, the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium submitted letters to the Pennsylvania General Assembly in support of Senate Bill 25 and House Bill 100. Read the letter to the Pennsylvania House below:

Dear Representative,

As the Chief Nurse Practitioner Officer at the National Nurse-Led Care Consortium, I speak for many of our members and nurse practitioner (NP) colleagues across the state urging the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to pass HB 100. This bill will put patients first and modernize Pennsylvania’s outdated Professional Nursing Law.

Nurse practitioners are educated and trained to serve patients as high quality, cost-effective healthcare providers, but Pennsylvania law makes it unnecessarily complicated and expensive for us to care for our patients. For the last 40 years, studies have shown that nurse practitioners provide excellent care and are an important and often necessary complement to other providers in the health care system. Nurse practitioners’ patients have equal or better health outcomes than patients of physicians. The requirement that nurse practitioners have a costly and redundant business agreement with a physician is obsolete, and weakens our state’s healthcare system. This barrier drives up costs for consumers and creates unnecessary professional and financial burdens to practice in Pennsylvania, while simultaneously reducing patient access to qualified primary care providers.

NPs play a critical role in caring for patients across Pennsylvania in primary and family healthcare settings, especially in Pennsylvania’s rural areas, where residents may otherwise face significant challenges accessing care in a timely manner. A 2015 Duke University study found that this reform would save Pennsylvanians “at least $6.4 billion over a decade, increase the statewide nurse practitioner workforce by 13 percent, and improve the overall quality of primary care.”

In January 2018, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) expressed their support for this bill in a letter stating:

In addition to the FTC, there is a robust list of national and Pennsylvania-based supporters of the legislation, including the National Academy of Medicine, PA Hospital and Healthsystem Association, the Commonwealth Foundation, and AARP. The 22 states that have already granted NPs full practice authority have experienced greater access to care, fewer hospitalizations and readmissions, fewer emergency room visits, and increased access to quality, affordable healthcare for all citizens.

HB 100 is budget neutral and maintains strong bipartisan support. Enacting full practice authority for this important sector of healthcare professionals will help expand access to quality care for all Pennsylvanians.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Fattibene, MSN, MPH, CRNP
Chief Nurse Practitioner Officer
National Nurse-Led Care Consortium

Download the letters: