Nurse practitioners praise executive order amid COVID-19 outbreak

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Nurse practitioners are praising Governor Bill Lee for his issuing of an executive order that suspends physician oversight for the purpose of treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The statewide order suspends physician oversight of nurse practitioners, allowing them to work without having to submit charts or have visits from doctors as they practice.

The temporary order was signed on March 24, and lasts until May 18.

Some nurse practitioners are glad to have the order in place, saying it frees up health care staff to work in other areas as everyone's job becomes more difficult and also frees up money to spend in other other areas, including paying for personal protective equipment.

“It was a relief because, typically, we are required to have a certain amount of chart review every month,"said April Kapu, an Associate Chief Nursing Officer for Advanced Practice at VUMC. "In the course of our regular day, that’s somewhat manageable, but when you’re in a pandemic and you’re seeing high, high volumes of patients that becomes an incredible burden.”

Kapu said the hospital is currently staffing up in anticipation of a COVID-19 surge that could happen, though she's not sure when or if it will. She says they have been able to save time on what would've been a spike in paperwork that doctors would have to approve.

In rural areas, some nurse practitioners run their own medical practices. The executive order will keep them from having to pay a doctor to drive to their locations or from having to go over patient charts.

“Right now we’re very busy because we’re getting more and more patients that are understanding, their families and they, are understanding that they can’t go out and seek medical care. It’s too scary for the common problems that they have," said Renee Collins, an APRN and owner of At Home Primary Care out of Cleveland, TN.

Collins hires nurses who visit with patients who are 65-years-old or older and have chronic conditions. They're part of the at-risk population and are quarantining during the COVID-19 outbreak.

She said her work has increased because people are sheltering at home.

“It’s allowed us to free up those funds that we were spending on a supervisory physician. It gave us that money to use for the PPE for our staff because we do primary care. So, we don’t normally have to have N5 masks and them. We had to purchase those and we had to buy them in bulk. That’s expensive and it’s hard to find," she said.

There was already a push to remove physician oversight of nurse practitioners going on in the state legislature. However, the Tennessee Medical Association, a group that represents doctors, was opposed to the measure. They said they wanted to maintain the relationship between nurses and doctors.