HB319/ SB484 Merged in a Town near you - now showing!

Colleagues:

We are heading back to Annapolis on Tuesday, April 13 to watch the Governor sign our bill into law! Oh glorious day!

I have had a few questions about rumors abounding! So, I am happy to say this legislation will eliminate the CA for ALL NPs in Maryland – not just Primary Care NPs… like I would turn my back on my golden years wading through blood and bullets in the ER (LOL).

Next, the Board of Nursing will rewrite the Regulations to reflect the changes. These will hopefully be finished by October. Once they are done, the CA will no longer be necessary!

More importantly our prescriptive authority and scope of practice now rests solely with the Board of Nursing, and not with the Board of Physicians.

NPs will have to file a statement that they will collaborate as necessary with other health care providers (duh) and provide the name of a Maryland physician who is willing to collaborate. Not sure how this will be worded or what the actual 'statement' will look like.

This "statement on file at the BoN" was the compromise we needed to get MedChi to stop obstructing the bill and why it passed unanimously through the House and easily through the Senate.

We are not expecting this to be a burden to NPs or their practices. And as the rewriting process moves forward, we will keep everyone posted.

Now that we have accomplished this very large change, there are several minor ones we will be working on over the next few years. We would love to have all the NPs in Maryland on board. Our ‘grass roots’ method using the NPs across the state really made a difference in the minds of our elected officials. They are all impressed with our passion and our ability to work together.

Please consider asking your colleagues to join our group, we are small but mighty. MCNP started in Southern Maryland but we now have an Annapolis based group and are hoping for one on the Eastern Shore. We would like to reach out to all NPs in the state and expand communication and comradeship.

Stay tuned, your roving correspondent, back in Annapolis, Elaine