Attended and written by members Dee Devlin and Barbara Fauchs

I On September 16, 2006, I had the opportunity to attend the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners Region 4 Leadership meeting along with Barbara Fauchs.

Representative NPs from Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee come together to network, share information, and dialogue about state, regional and national issues of mutual concerns. This was a very informative meeting.

Many topics were discussed. Among them were malpractice insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, retail clinics, NPI numbers and DNP.

Quite a bit of time was spent discussing DNP. There were people on both sides of obtaining a DNP and the necessity of DNP. I got the impression that the push is for NPs now to have DNP. It means more education(although most of the NP programs now incorporate some of the proposed required competencies)and more clinical time. One of the reasons for the push for Doctor of Nurse Practitioner is that pharmacists, physical and social workers have their own doctorate programs. The thinking is that Nurse Practitioners having their own doctorate programs will put them on a par with other professions. However, there is a question of how much further education will be needed for nurse practitioners to get this degree and there are differing ideas about this, ranging from grandfathering in current NPs to everyone completing the doctoral program by a certain time.

There are a few political issues that are of concern to us NPs. One being malpractice. Proposals are out to put a cap on malpractice on MDs. NPs or other health care providers are not mentioned. By being left out, we could be paying out more if sued. The state insurance commissioner is the one to get to know and have on our side.

There is a push about DOT physicals. A proposal has been made for a national registry of providers to do these physicals. We need 1,000 NPs to get involved now in this registry.

By May 23, 2007, all health care providers who utilize electronic billing for Medicare and Medicaid (and that will be everyone as Healthy People 2010 requires all records to go electronic) are required to have a NPI number. This is a 10 digit number. The Medicare and Medicaid numbers that health care providers have will no longer be valid for billing purposes. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have developed the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NIPPES) to assign these unique health care provider identifiers. The NPI enumerator is necessary to deal with health plans and providers on issues relating to unique identification

Contact Information
E-mail: customerservice@npienumerator.com
Telephone: 1-800-465-3203
Mailing Address:

NPI Enumerator
P.O. Box 6059
Fargo, North Dakota 58108-6059

FYI: If a provider applies for the NPI number by computer, the NPI is sent via computer message. There is no follow-up letter in the mail.

The mini clinics in drugstores are taking off and providing an additional job source for family nurse practitioners. They have not begun in South Carolina, but inquiries are being made for soon to be clinics. For an example of what is involved in a mini clinic, look up minuteclinic on the Internet.

So many things were discussed and many papers were handed out. We all need to be cognizant of what’s happening politically and finding out where our candidates stand on health care issues. Another important push is to be nationally identified as NP.

I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting and look forward to having the opportunity to attend again.

Dagmar (Dee) Devlin, NP

November 14th, 2006

NP Week November 6-12!