In 2020, Florida and California passed legislation to relax scope-of-practice laws for nurse practitioners (NPs).
Florida's new law went into effect July 1 and allowed NPs to practice independently, after completing 3000 hours of practice supervised by a physician in the past 5 years. The bill in California, which will take effect in January 2023, requires NPs to work under the supervision of a physician for 3 years before practicing independently.
Florida and California join 12 other states that require similar transition periods before allowing NPs to practice independently, and 14 others that allow full practice authority. Previously, states that expanded scope-of-practice laws tended to have more rural patient populations.
Currently, 22 states continue to have scope-of-practice laws that restrict NPs from practicing independently, though one, Massachusetts, is exempting advanced practice registered nurses who have completed 2 years of supervised practice from the state's requirement for physician supervision during the current state of emergency because of COVID-19.
Health Outcomes
As states have changed their scope-of-practice laws for NPs, researchers have tried to determine whether scope of practice restrictions ever served their intended purpose — to keep patients safe — and whether, once the restrictions were lifted, healthcare improved.
Several researchers have analyzed various datasets on utilization, access to care, and quality measures before and after scope-of-practice laws changed and compared that data to states that still have scope-of-practice restrictions.
