Should your nurse be practicing alone?

By Rick Ruggles – World-Herald Staff Writer

Typically teammates in patient care, physicians and a group of highly educated nurses are at odds over whether those nurses should practice independently in Nebraska.

Nurse practitioners — nurses with master's degrees or doctorates — are rapidly increasing in number in Nebraska, Iowa and nationwide.

As the population of elderly Americans grows, as federal law gives more people access to insured care and as numbers of primary care doctors rise at a sluggish pace, nurse practitioners say they can help plug a gap in American health care.

At issue is the degree to which nurse practitioners may operate free of physician oversight. Nurse practitioners in Iowa and 15 other states already have autonomy. Those in Nebraska do not.

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