Nurse practitioner rules waived in Missouri due to coronavirus

Certain health care workers in Missouri’s coronavirus emergency have been given a bit greater latitude to work during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, AANP members may now, for the balance of the emergency, practice in a new setting without a collaborating physician continuously present for at least one month.

The easing of this 30-day rule, via temporary waiver from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), is intended to slash the time normally needed to apply and be approved for crisis response nurse practitioner (NP) jobs.

Additionally, by executive order of Gov. Mike Parson on March 18, Missouri has temporarily waived the requirement for a nurse practitioner (NP) to work within 75 miles of a collaborating physician.

The goal of this flexibility is to provide more care, more quickly to those who are presenting coronavirus symptoms.

According to DHSS figures as of Tuesday, 3,037 people in Missouri have tested positive for COVID-19 and more than 50 have died.

The most hard-hit of Missouri’s 114 counties is St. Louis County, with 1,203 positive results and 24 deaths.

Cape Girardeau County has reported 20 confirmed cases with one death.

The death, reported late Tuesday by the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center, was a person in the highest-risk age-demographic, 80-plus. No further information on the victim was available at press time.

“These changes won’t affect our NPs much,” said Tony Thompson, co-founder and CEO of EBO MD, which operates subscriber-based direct primary care clinics in Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Fredericktown.

“Our nurse practitioners are veterans and are situated well within the 75-mile radius,” he added.

A third waiver, temporarily bypassing the requirement for collaborating physicians to review at least 10% of a nurse practitioner’s charts every two weeks, will likely be ignored by EBO.

“It’s good to have these reviews and we’ll continue to do them despite the waiver,” said Thompson, 52, whose EBO clinics have been operating locally since 2016.

“(The reviews) ensure the continuity and quality of care,” he added.

According to DHSS figures, no one younger than 30 has died to date in the Show Me State due to the coronavirus.

Seventy percent of Missouri COVID-19 recorded deaths — 37 — have been to those 70 years of age and older.