Physicians should not Shackle Non-physician Healthcare Providers

Occupational licensing laws specify the tasks or “scope of practice” that non-physician healthcare providers are allowed to perform by law. Physicians have significant influence on these laws directly via their position on state licensing boards and also indirectly by influencing state legislators with professional association lobbying. Individual states have the authority to specify professional scope of practice and this results in some interesting differences across states. For example, the state of Kentucky is the only state [3] in the United States that does not allow physician assistants the authority to prescribe controlled substances with physician supervision. This places a clear limitation on the ability of physician assistants to provide care to vulnerable populations in the state.