INCREASING ACCESS TO CARE IN CALIFORNIA BY EXPANDING MID-LEVEL PRACTITIONER SCOPE OF PRACTICE

Abstract

California, the most populous state in the nation with roughly forty million residents,^[1] faces a shortage of health care providers that significantly threatens access to quality health care.^[2] With an aging population^[3] and declining numbers of physicians licensed by the state of California who provide 20 or more hours of weekly patient care, the state should consider all available strategies to ensure timely access to quality health care.^[4] Unfortunately, California struggles to find the political will to address this challenge by following the national trend and permitting nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) to practice to the full extent of their training and education.

[1] Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2015 (NST-EST2015-01), U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division (Dec. 2015), https://web.archive.org/web/20160130223507/http://www.census.gov/popest/data/state/totals/2015/index.html.

[2] California Physician Supply and Distribution: Headed for a Drought?, California Health Care Foundation (Jun. 2018), https://www.chcf.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/CAPhysicianSupply2018.pdf.

[3] Id., [“The supply of physicians in California may not be able to keep pace with growth in the state’s demand for medical care due to population growth and aging. As with the general population, the population of physicians is aging, and older physicians will likely continue to scale back on patient care activities.”]

[4] Id.