re: Going to a Nurse Practitioner is Like Going to a Paralegal for Legal Advice

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Could you elaborate on this? My SO is about to graduate with an NP, and I didn't realize this level of pay was possible. I'm genuinely interested

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my brother got his nursing degree at ULL and both his masters at University of South Alabama in geriatrics and psych. he hooked up with a Psych doctor and they make rounds at inpatient mental hospitals and nursing homes. Like I said earlier, these inpatient hospitals will pay my brother to round there under the psych doctor through monthly stipends ranging from 2k for the smaller hospitals to 10k at larger ones. He then bills medicare/Medicaid for the patients he sees. He's also got a clinic he goes to once a week. He is also paid monthly stipends to be on call so many days a month. he also gets paid stipends to do telemeds if needed (seeing a patient over the computer much like face time with a nurse at the facility as a third party documenting the diagnosis/prescription). He pays the psych doctor a certain percentage of the stipends because the doctor is the "medical director" of his practice (his business). His practice is mostly just med management being that he deals mostly with older patients that have some form of mental disease like dementia or Alzheimer's

most NPs are comfortable working for someone but he has his own LLC and insurance coverage much like an owner of a company and contracts himself out.

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Something is amiss in the medical field when it is turning out these quacks that can see patients and prescribe medicine. I've seen NPs before out of necessity, but today was the last one.

I've never had a high opinion of general practice physicians, I think it's obvious they didn't exactly set medical school on fire, and typically have no idea how to diagnose your issue and just nod while scribbling a Rx for whatever drug they are being paid to push.

But NPs are an even further departure from that. Basically they are nurses who held on long enough to slap NP on the end of their name (and maybe had to study late for a few tests, wow, that sounds incredibly arduous). Sorry, I've known too many nurses before they were nurses to even attempt to have a high opinion of that field.

I would be pretty upset at how they are encroaching on the medical field, and are not doing real doctors any favors.

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Back in college, I had lower-back and kidney pain and a slight wheezing cough for about a week. I saw my doctor who quickly told me the symptoms were unrelated, prescribed me some cough medicine and sent me on my way.

After a couple more days with no improvement, I went back and, unable to get an appointment with my doctor, saw the NP who worked at his office. Within 2 minutes, she diagnosed me with pneumonia. Chest x-rays confirmed.

My doctor was a decent dude but he was an inattentive and rushed doctor who wanted to quickly diagnose and move to the next waiting patient. The NP was really thorough and took more time to explore the possible diagnoses.

My pneumonia was bad enough to land me in the hospital eventually but was less severe than it could have been because an NP took the time to properly diagnose and start treatment.

Anyway, that's just my experience.

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An intelligent person can pick another field that has good income potential without all the barriers of entry. So a person willing to go through all of it is just self-absorbed status whore.

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Or maybe some people are truly good people and like the idea of helping others.

Again you're missing my point. I didn't say it wasn't plausible I said the poster only knows it because the NP told him.

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So an NP with his/her own practice or maybe partnered in a practice could pull down six figures?

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There are lots of experienced RN's making in the low $100ks without OT let alone NP's.

Private practice, and good client base and the sky is the limit.

Louisiana has a very low RN/NP pay compared to Texas so it's area specific. Sure California pays more but the COL is much higher.

Some and sometimes, yes.

I know several NPs that work for the local hospitals that make over $100k.

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Or maybe some people are truly good people and like the idea of helping others.

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yeah, utopia

So committed to helping people that I'm going to dig wells in Africa, build homes in Malaysia, and then pay $300k...so I can help people, while living in a big arse house with some trophy blonde.

He's envious as Hell.

What's wrong dr.? Did a nurse practitioner make a diagnosis that you missed and make you look like an idiot?