Estimating the Effect of the New York State Nurse Practitioners Modernization Act on Care Received by Medicaid Patients.

The demand for primary care services may surpass the supply of primary care providers, exacerbating challenges with access, quality, and cost in the U.S. health care system.

The effects of expanded nurse practitioner and physician assistant scope of practice on the cost of Medicaid patient care.

The provision of health care to low-income Americans remains an ongoing policy challenge. In this paper, I examine how important changes to occupational licensing laws for nurse practitioners and physician assistants have affected cost and intensity of health care for Medicaid patients. The results suggest that allowing physician assistants to prescribe controlled substances is associated with a substantial (more than 11%) reduction in the dollar amount of outpatient claims per Medicaid recipient.