Congratulations to South Dakota for becoming the most recent State to pass a law to grant full and direct access to Nurse Practitioners!  This is the 22nd State to authorize NPs to provide the full scope of services to the public.  Certainly, this will enhance patients’ ability to access high quality health care. Just how are laws made?  Let’s take some time here to learn about how you can get one in the law books. First, you need to find one of your State’s legislators who will “sponsor” … [Read more...]

Sometime nurses resign yet their employment records will show that they were terminated.  Therefore, the question becomes, how can you properly resign? In order to properly resign, you must submit your resignation in writing and it has to be accepted.  Keep documentation of your resignation and, for added measure, have it signed and dated by your employer.  Also, if it is possible, get a letter confirming your resignation.  That way, there can be no question that you resigned and were not … [Read more...]

In nursing, there is a fine line between high tech and high touch.  Sometimes I wonder, with so much technology, will they even need nurses in the future? Someday there may be a “tricorder” like Bones used in the Star Trek series to diagnose and heal people.  But … back to reality. It’s interesting that nursing is so high tech yet there are a 100,000 deaths that occur in hospitals each year as a result of medical mistakes.  To learn more click here. Other high tech industries do not have … [Read more...]

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If a nurse ever faces a criminal matter, they could wind up on the Medicare and Medicaid Exclusion list which prohibits a nurse from working in any facility where they take Medicare or Medicaid payments which is virtually every place. The goal of many attorneys is to keep a nurse with a criminal matter out of prison which is proper and a worthy goal for their client.  However, many an attorney may not understand the ramification if their nurse client is added to the exclusion list that makes … [Read more...]