Before I start this article, I felt it necessary to let everyone know that my wife is a nurse practitioner here in Milam County; however, that still doesn’t change my opinion on the very important topic of Rural Healthcare.
Last week, Senator Cesar Blanco of El Paso offered up Senate Bill 1700 (SB1700) in the Texas State Senate. This bill would eliminate the administrative and financial barriers Nurse Practitioners face by the requirement of practicing under a supervising physician. Currently, 32 states have already made this move and those states have seen the benefits of this such as freeing these nurse practitioners up to practice where they are needed, when they are needed, and for many in the manner of a General Practitioner Provider. Much like most of rural America enjoyed prior to the takeover of most of America’s medical infrastructure by corporate medicine.
Currently for a nurse practitioner to practice in the state of Texas and the other 17 states still requiring these restrictions, the nurse practitioner must pay the supervising physician in order to practice in the state. In Milam County, we are blessed to have a doctor who is a general practitioner, and we have multiple independent nurse practitioners throughout the county who serve our residents with the care and nurturing that has slowly drifted away with the emergence of big corporate medical and the over-specialization of most doctors today. What we need is more of these individuals who will come and serve as an independent general practitioner.
Passing this bill and removing the administrative and financial barriers will do that. SB1700 will create an improved environment for our nurse practitioners allowing them to meet the needs of not only Milam County, but most of rural Texas. As stated before, currently 32 states already have made this move and it has opened the doors to many nurse practitioners to provide rural America with expanded services that many thought they would never have again. Many states who have passed this sort of legislation have done so specifically to open these doors and allow those less-served communities to seek out the help they need.
My Great-Uncle George was a small-town family doctor in my father’s hometown back in Georgia. He was born in 1922, attended Emory University Medical School in Atlanta, and served his hometown as the town general practitioner doctor for many years. Many things have changed since that time and to see someone with a medical degree serving as a general practitioner is extremely rare today. Most doctors today are specialized and work on a referral system rather than being in the business of serving the general needs of the public. And in all honesty, most scholars admit that with the advancement of technology and science, Nurse Practitioners of today are better trained and educated than most doctors were even just 50 years ago.
To date, the only real opposition to this has been big corporate medicine and the Texas Medical Association (TMA) who represents Texas’s Doctors, not you. Both, big corporate medicine and the TMA over the years has opposed any legislation created that would address medical workforce shortage, improve access to healthcare, and expand the scope-ofpractice for non-physicians. The TMA is so vehemently against SB1700 that their representative interrupted Senator Blanco’s press briefing on this bill Tuesday.
With Texas needing an improvement in rural healthcare, this is a tremendous first step to expand healthcare opportunities in the rural areas that 32 states have already taken. So please consider contacting your state representatives and state senators and let them know how we feel on this subject.
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