Letter to Editor in rebuttal of Florida Medical Association Comments from article titled: Looking to Write Controlled Prescriptions, Nurse Practitioners Seek to Engage Mike Haridopolos on August 4, 2010.
It is estimated that by granting Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Midwives and Nurse Anesthetists the same prescriptive privileges as 48 states and the district of Columbia, Florida could save billions in dollars every year. Studies in other states have shown a reduction to state Medicaid budgets of twenty percent or greater when Nurse Practitioners are allowed to practice at their full abilities.
The Florida Medical Association recently made several statements that were blatantly false regarding Nurse Practitioners. Their claim that Nurse Practitioners are not educated in their graduate programs to prescribe controlled medications is untrue and appears to be an attempt to scare the public.
Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Midwives and Nurses Anesthetists education occurs in graduate educational programs. They study pharmacology and pharmacotherapeutics including the indications, possible interactions, management and monitoring for prescribing all legal medications both those that are controlled and non-controlled. They must undergo rigorous certification examinations that test their ability to manage the medical care of their patients.
Nurse Practitioners, Nurse Midwives and Nurse Anesthetists have been shown in numerous research studies to provide the same safe, high quality cost effective health care to their patients as physicians, including the prescription of controlled medications.
Clearly the Florida Medical Association is not making evidenced based statements and we encourage them to read the numerous studies showing Nurse Practitioners are safe prescribers of all medications, including controlled substances.