A Nurse Practitioner's View

CareFirst Insurer Expands Role of Nurse Practitioners, IOM Recommends Same Last week, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, an insurer in Baltimore, Maryland, announced that it would enable nurse practitioners to serve as primary-care providers in Maryland, Northern Virginia, and the D.C. area. In response to both the physician shortage, which is expected to take a turn for the worse in the coming years, and to the health care reform law, which will produce an huge spike in insured patients by 2014, CareFirst made the decision to grant more authority to nurse practitioners. As quoted in a recent FierceHealthCare article , CareFirst Senior Vice President for Networks Management Bruce Edwards noted: "With these developments ahead and an existing need to expand access to these services, allowing nurse practitioners to practice independently as primary-care providers is a logical move to serve our members better." The CareFirst decision to rec...