Nurse practitioners delivering emergency care without physician supervision at the Veterans Health Administration increase patient stay time by 11 percent and raise preventable hospitalizations by 20 percent, according to a March 10 report from the American Medical Association based on data from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The study shows that NPs increase the cost of emergency care by $66 per patient. Increasing the number of NPs on duty also increases healthcare spending by $238 per case, not including paying NP salaries.
Assigning 25 percent of emergency cases to NPs costs $74 million annually for the Veterans Health Administration, according to the study.