Pacific Legal Foundation is using billboards in The Tar Heel State, along I-77 near Statesville, that state “Rural America is Dying” and “We Need Nurses.”
Donna Matias, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, told AFN the law firm is focusing on North Carolina because the state has a nursing shortage. The shortage is made worse by a physician-supervised requirement for an APRN, or advanced-practice registered nurse.
The advanced skills to become an ARPN are often used to become a nurse practitioner.
Pacific Legal, which represents clients free of charge, is seeking nurses in the state who want to challenge the supervisory agreement in court.
"In 70 out of the 80 counties in North Carolina, access to care is difficult because of government roadblocks," said Matias. "It's not that there are not providers that are licensed and ready and willing to provide care. It's that the government has made it very difficult and in particular with advanced-practice registered nurses.”
Matias, who works largely with nurse practitioners, said they are prevented from establishing an independent practice because they must have a collaborative practice agreement with a physician. That means that they must find a physician willing to agree to oversee them.
"It's called supervising, and I'm going to use that term loosely,” Matias observes, “because that's not really what happens if you talk to any nurse practitioners that are on the ground.”
