Contact: Richard Gulla
Tel: 781-434-7101
Email: rgulla@mms.org
Waltham/Boston – September 10 – Saying that the bill “presents an unbalanced approach which works to the interest of a few individual nurses seeking to independently practice psychiatry while presenting no protections to patients,” the Massachusetts Medical Society today testified before the legislature’s Joint Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse in opposition to House 1793, An Act to Increase Access to Mental Health Services.
The 24,000-member physicians’ organization said the legislation “would remove the existing statutory framework underlying the relationship between physicians and psychiatric nurse practitioners and creates no public protections or standards to replace the legal basis for the functioning team approach to collaborative and supervisory relationships among psychiatric nurses and physicians which has served the Commonwealth so well over the years.”
The Medical Society said if psychiatric nurse practitioners are to become independent in their practice, it is important for legislators to understand who may become a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Massachusetts.
Citing state law and calling attention to educational and training requirements, the Society said there is nothing in statute requiring a specific degree for independent practice of nurse practitioners and that the Nursing Board approves its own regulations without oversight by the state’s Public Health Council.
“Any consideration of independent practice for nurse practitioners,” the Society stated in its written testimony, “must address the lack of public protections required of nursing. The Massachusetts Medical Society urges the legislature not to expose the public, particularly our most vulnerable patients, to the independent practice of individuals with minimal training and no oversight whatsoever. Independent practice is not the model that has helped nurse practitioners in establishing their profession. Integrated teams are the standard of care as well as the model for the future.”
“Nurse practitioners are not subject to the public protections the legislature has created for the practice of medicine by physicians,” the Medical Society continued.
“They do not have profiles listing their education, specialties and history of discipline, criminal convictions or malpractice payments, are not currently required to use the prescription monitoring program, are not required to have professional liability coverage, are not subject to mandatory continuing education requirements in specific areas as are physicians, and do not have requirements regarding electronic medical records and a host of other legislative mandates which apply to physicians.”
Noting that the organized nursing nationally has been working to expand the scope of practices of nursing, the Medical Society urged legislators to “consider the benefits to the public at large in dismantling the Massachusetts system of integrating nurse practitioners into a comprehensive healthcare team and replacing it with a legal framework for the independent practice of medicine by nurses.”
The complete testimony of the Medical Society is available at www.massmed.org/testimony
The Massachusetts Medical Society, with more than 24,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the patients and physicians of Massachusetts. The Society, under the auspices of NEJM Group, publishes the New England Journal of Medicine, a leading global medical journal and web site, and NEJM Journal Watch alerts and publications covering 13 specialties. The Society is also a leader in continuing medical education for health care professionals throughout Massachusetts, conducting a variety of medical education programs for physicians and health care professionals. Founded in 1781, MMS is the oldest continuously operating medical society in the country.
