In the last five years the Family nurse Practitioner (FNP) has evolved into a recognized, quality addition in primary care. With graduate level education, training in family medicine and national certification the FNP is highly qualified to diagnose and treat multifaceted health concerns among patients. As the scope of practice for the FNP continues to broaden the FNP subspecialties have simplified into focus specialization such as: cardiac, endocrine/diabetes, renal/urology, pulmonology, oncology, emergency/trauma and critical care (Family Nurse Practitioner, 2016).
Primary care physicians (PCPs) are adding FNPs in their practices to compete with rising health care costs and decreasing physician …show more content…
In the state of Alabama the scope of practice is defined and regulated through the following significant policy and regulation initiatives: the Consensus Model for Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Regulation: Licensure, Accreditation, Certification and Education, the Doctor of Nursing Practice movement, the Institute Of Medicine’s (IOM) report and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Barriers still exist such as limitations in practice, requirements for supervision and variability in scope of practice even with the developments to the FNP role (Hain & Fleck, 2014). These barriers in state law limit the autonomy of the nurse practitioner and they are unable to practice to their full extent in most states (Family Nurse Practitioner, …show more content…
Although Alabama is not entirely noted as a rural area, the state itself is overall one of the states that Van Vleet and Paradise (2015) describe as rural areas underserved by professional primary care physicians. In rural states FNPs are eligible for reimbursement of graduate student loans when they agree to work for two or more years in the rural community practice. Many practitioners elect to stay due to increased compensation, autonomy and patient perspectives and grateful of care (VanVleet & Paradise,