National nurse practitioner association calls for N.L. to embrace public funding model

Calls are mounting to allow private nurse practitioner clinics the ability to bill Newfoundland and Labrador's public health-care system, but the head of the province's nurses' union is worried that could pull nurses into private practices.

Currently, nurse practitioners in Newfoundland and Labrador can set up private clinics but cannot bill their services under any government program.

Last month the Newfoundland and Labrador Nurse Practitioner Association submitted a funding model proposal that would allow nurse practitioners to bill the province — similar to how physicians bill through the provincial Medical Care Plan (MCP).

It's a move welcomed by Stan Marchuk, chief executive officer of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Canada.

"We need to modernize the way in which health care is delivered," he recently told CBC News.

However, Marchuk said there hasn't been much movement to embrace the model in N.L.

"They've been stymied-in quite a bit by government, which I think is really unfortunate," he said.

"I do think that they're missing the mark. You know, what's the barrier? Why not have the political will to move forward?"

Marchuk said he isn't worried that nurse practitioners might leave the public health-care system to set up their own clinics.

"I don't see that to be the case because I think there's already precedent in the country that says otherwise," he said.

"I think it's like anything, you know, you have to create opportunity. And I don't think that in Newfoundland they have created opportunity for a long, long time — despite asking for it."

Marchuk said Alberta is moving to bring in a new payment model so that nurse practitioners with a practice are paid directly by the province.

Yvette Coffey, president of the Registered Nurses' Union of Newfoundland and Labrador (RNUNL), said she's hearing patients are being charged up to $75 for a visit with a nurse practitioner in private clinics.

"We need to have nurse practitioner-led clinics under the public health-care system, under N.L. Health Services, to meet the needs of patients in the province," she said.