Policy Change in Health Care

The association through regular meetings and dinner provide for a platform through which the nurse practitioners in Maryland can network. The association is associated closely with the American Nurse Practitioner Association and the American Nurses Association. As an organization, the NPAM plays a critical role in promoting the services and functions that nurse practitioners provide within the health care system. The mission of the NPAM is to ensure a sound policy and regulatory foundation that enables nurse practitioners to provide accessible, high-quality healthcare to the public. The organization was chosen as it is the association that directly addresses all the legislative issues that affect the nursing practice in Maryland. In Maryland, the policy issue is relevant due to the high drug and substance abuse issues that have been identified.

I support the enactment of the bill which will aim to significantly reduce the misuse of monitored prescription drugs in Maryland. The reason for supporting the policy change is that the implications of the policy change will provide a more stringent legislation that not only guards the misuse of the monitored prescription drug for the individuals abusing the drug but also emphasizes on prescriber/ dispenser responsibilities in preventing the abuse or misuse of the medication. The prescription of monitored prescription drugs in the USA has been high and increased over the years which has been directly comparable to the increase in the rates of prescription drug abuse in the country. The rate of increase in abuse is hence fueled by the ease and increase in the rate and possibly ease of prescription of the medication by the health providers.

The policy will considerably bring sanity in the access and the use or misuse of the prescription medication. The policy which touches on the prescriber will promote more responsibility on the part of the prescriber or the dispenser ensuring that the prescribers will be more careful in assessing the patient needs before prescribing. In this regard, prescription such as for pain management is likely to be better managed hence improving the quality of care and providing the patients with a more positive outcome of care. Monitoring of the prescription of the drugs will also allow the prescribers to provide more patient follow-ups which will prevent the likely occurrence of addictive behaviors among the patient prescribed hence impacting positively on the quality of patient care offered to the patients.

The financial implications of the policy change is that the policy will most likely reduce the supply of the monitored prescription drugs such as opioids due to a decline in their prescription and hence reducing the supply both legal and illegal (McHugh, Nielsen & Weiss, 2015). The establishment of the policy and the enactment of the new paid groups approach to insurance reimbursement is also likely to lead to limited reimbursements with practices taking care of economic costs linked to their failure such as misuse of a prescription. The regulatory and licensing of CRNP is anchored within the provisions of the legal statutes of the Maryland state. The policy implementation and which is contained within the same legal statute may not have any specific impact on the licensing of the CRNP.