Medical Monopoly Bilks Florida Taxpayers Out of Millions

By Maggie Harrison
A hospice patient waits hours in agony because a Nurse Practitioner cannot prescribe pain medication and the physician has not called back with an order. A child goes without attention deficit medication because her parents have lost their insurance and the only provider they can afford to see is a Nurse Practitioner (NP). The NP is not authorized to write the prescription in Florida but he could write it in 48 other states, so he sends the child to the ER for the prescription. A shingles patient is sent to the ER for pain relief because the NP CAN prescribe the anti-viral but cannot prescribe the pain medication. 
A child in rural Florida is brought to a rural clinic with a fracture of the leg but the NP cannot prescribe pain medication to reduce the fracture and the child is so distraught paramedics are called to give a narcotic. The child is then transported via ambulance to the hospital for care. This paramedic with one year of education was authorized to give the narcotic, but the NP with seven years of education and 11 years of work in rural emergency medicine could not do the same. If the NP could have administered pain medication this child would not have needed an ambulance ride to the hospital.
A patient is seen at a free clinic and a volunteer NP sees her. The patient needs Phenobarbital for uncontrolled seizures; she has just moved from another state and does not have insurance. She has all of her medical records with her but the NP must send her to the ER for the medication. The patient cannot afford to go to the ER and cannot afford the $300 physician visit so she waits and hopes she does not have a Grand Mal Seizure. If and when she seizes, and there is a good chance she will, this woman will wind up in an ambulance to the ER and possible ICU admission, depending on how hard she hits her head when she falls.
Who will pick up the tab for all of this? The Florida Taxpayer.
WHY?
Because all of these patients are either uninsured or receive a state-funded medical insurance program. If any one of these incidents had taken place in 48 other states, the NP could have prescribed the necessary medication. The patients would have received care, and taxpayers would not have been charged with an unpaid ER visit or a second consultation by another practitioner.
In addition Florida citizens have had to pay for unnecessary autopsies because NPs cannot sign death certificate. Law enforcement has to be called to Baker Act patients because the NP cannot sign the paperwork. And NPs cannot open their own clinic unless they pay thousands of dollars monthly to a “supervising” physician, thus driving up the costs of health care.
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E-mail Maggie at: hcfreedom1@gmail.com or visit www.cap-pac.org.