Nurse practitioners are back and want Medicare cash to do your job

An MBS review committee is calling for nurse practitioners to access care plans and urgent after-hours items
Geir O'Rourke
Stethoscope

Nurse practitioners can do the same work as GPs and should be given access to the same Medicare items for care plans, urgent after-hours and health assessments, an MBS Review Taskforce committee has declared.

In a no-holds-barred expert report, the review’s nurse practitioner reference group calls for a “significant” boost to the rebates for existing nurse practitioner attendance items, declaring current restrictions on Medicare are limiting patients from choosing to see a nurse instead of a GP.