Nursing's economic value and the reimbursement of it has been neglected for decades, the American Nurses Association argues, and now it is pushing for key changes to restore how the profession is valued.
"Despite the prominence of nursing's role in the delivery of patient care, nurses are virtually invisible when it comes to payment — nursing care is usually bundled with other facility or operational expenses despite the role of nursing in lowering the cost of care," the organization noted in a May 26 statement.
As such, it has outlined three key ways to move the needle on the issue:
- Increase use of the National Provider Identifier as a unique nurse identifier, which allows providers and Advanced Practice Registered Nurses to bill CMS for their services to patients. The NPI must be registered by a provider, but using it raises the visibility of what nurses do.
- The ANA advocates for the direct reimbursement of nurses and calls for funding and grants to be allocated to nurse-led projects and research. The association's foundational arm also provides grants for this purpose.
- Elevate the economic value of the nursing profession with extended research efforts into different ways to quantify the impact of nursing as a whole and present that data to Congress for garnering legislative visibility and support. This effort is being led by the ANA Enterprise Research Council.