Advanced Practice Nurses : Perspectives on Competition and Regulation

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) vigorously promotes competition in the health care industry through enforcement, study, and advocacy. Competition in health care markets benefits consumers by helping to control costs and prices, improve quality of care, promote innovative products, services, and service delivery models, and expand access to health care services and goods. While state legislators and policymakers addressing health care issues are rightly concerned with patient health and safety, an important goal of competition law and policy is to foster quality competition, which also furthers health and safety objectives. Likewise, to ignore competitive concerns in health policy can impede quality competition, raise prices, or diminish access to health care all of which carry their own health and safety risks. This book builds on FTC staff competition advocacy comments that focus on proposed state-level changes to statutes and rules governing the "scope of practice" of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs). Scope of practice rules determine the range of health care procedures and services that various health care professionals are licensed to provide under state law.