Tech & Supply Chain
NP or MD? Are we asking the wrong question
Summary: One component of healthcare’s access problem is the relative scarcity of physicians, a gap nurse practitioners (NPs) have increasingly helped fill.
Key points
- One component of healthcare’s access problem is the relative scarcity of physicians, a gap nurse practitioners (NPs) have increasingly helped fill.
- Their lower salaries make substitution economically attractive, but evidence from VA emergency departments suggests that lower-cost clinicians do not necessarily produce lower-cost care.
- More surprisingly, individual clinician performance may matter considerably more than whether the clinician is an NP or a physician.
One component of healthcare’s access problem is the relative scarcity of physicians, a gap nurse practitioners (NPs) have increasingly helped fill. Their lower salaries make substitution economically attractive, but evidence from VA emergency departments suggests that lower-cost clinicians do not necessarily produce lower-cost care. More surprisingly, individual clinician performance may matter considerably more than whether the clinician is an NP or a physician.
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