By 2014, there will be a sudden influx of newly-insured patients seeking care, and it’s predicted that in many cases there will be a shortage of professionals to meet the demands of the exponentially rising patient base. With some 32 million Americans soon gaining access to new insurance, and a projected 45,000 physician shortage by 2020, facilities will ultimately find it difficult to keep up with physician hiring.

The new solution to this impending physician shortage? Hire Nurse Practitioners. There’s going to be a great imbalance of patients to doctors, and the only way to keep facilities running smoothly and ensure continued quality will be to build a sturdy support team. And hiring NPs—essentially, RNs with graduate degrees and the ability to perform many of the same responsibilities as doctors—is a great way to set the foundation for that team.

Though our firm also offers locum tenens staffing and physician placement, many healthcare facilities are overwhelmed and simply do not have the resources to hire a new fleet of physicians. If this sounds like your organization, it may be time to consider hiring Nurse Practitioners instead. “At The Execu|Search Group, we have been seeing an increase in both Nurse Practitioner candidates and Nurse Practitioner positions in the job market,” says Becky Garson, a Director in The Execu|Search Group’s Healthcare recruiting division.  “There are a lot of RNs who have gone back to school to become NPs and in the future  will take the place of physicians, especially in urgent care and outpatient settings.  It seems that this trend will continue and that NPs will serve as a pertinent solution to the physician shortage.”

The duties of a Nurse Practitioner vary, and those seeking the certification can choose from a number of specialties to pursue including primary care, pediatric care, geriatric care, oncology, and psychiatric care. In each respective field, Nurse Practitioners can conduct check-ups, diagnose patients, and decide on proper treatments. Some NPs even take their own patients, much like a physician would. However, the legal duties of an NP and their ability to overlap or replace physicians currently vary by state. For example, in New York, NPs can only prescribe controlled substances with some degree of physician involvement.  In others, they can prescribe independently of physicians.

Currently, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, NPs are not being used to their full potential. The journal reports that they are limited to the care they can legally provide by state, and often less, whereas their education and training prepares them for the full scope of their current duties and beyond. As a result, take a look at your state laws to evaluate if your NPs can do more than they are currently doing. If they’re not, you should consider giving them more freedom to ensure you provide the best possible quality of care for patients, take some of the weight off physicians, and prevent patient rehospitalization and the associated fees put forth by the Affordable Care Act.

If you do see your state’s laws limiting Nurse Practitioners responsibilities, this news may be of interest to you: in light of the impending wave of patients, a number of states are currently looking into reforming their laws to allow more responsibilities to Nurse Practitioners. In the process, there is a lot of disagreement over whether or not NPs should be allowed to perform independently as physicians do. Whereas Nurse Practitioners believe they should be allowed to take on such responsibilities, some doctors have responded that patient safety could be compromised if there are no supervisory physicians available. This could be the case, and independent NP practice may need more careful review, but one thing is certain: Nurse Practitioners, even with their current limitations, are a great solution to physician shortages in the coming years and can provide excellent support to already overwhelmed doctors and facilities.