Nurse practitioner employment has nearly doubled between 2010 and 2017 according to Auerbach et al. (2020).
If nurse practitioners can provide similar quality for some services at lower cost, nurse practitioners could save money. If nurse practitioners can help better leverage physician time for more complex services, and increase access to care, they may be able to improve quality as well.
Increasing incentives for use of nurse practitioners should be a major focus of any plan for Medicare for All. This will prevent demand from outpacing supply of practitioners and help maintain practice revenue.