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Action Alert:
SB2110 by Lundberg
HB2203 by Ramsey

Nurses Advocating for Access to Healthcare in Tennessee

Thank you for your continued support in making Nurses Day on the Hill such a great event. However, now is not the time to lose momentum. We need you to send emails to legislators on the House and Senate Health Committees TODAY. 

What you need to do: Email the legislators listed below and ask them to support SB2110/HB2203. You also need to share this alert and ask family, friends, clients and co-workers to email the legislators as well. 

  • Specifically ask the legislators to vote for SB2110/HB2203, and ask them for a response about how they plan to vote on the bill. If you receive a response from a legislator, make sure to share it with TNA by forwarding responses to [email protected]. 

  • Use the talking points below, and make sure to personalize your email with how this legislation will help your practice and your patients. 

  • Personalizing the talking points and sharing your personal story helps ensure the email will be read, responded to, and make an impact on the legislator. 
Legislative Summary of Senate Bill 2110/House Bill 2203:

  • Allow for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) to practice to the full extent of their education without mandated physician collaboration.

  • Allow Tennesseans to have increased access to vital healthcare services because APRNs will not need to absorb the cost of paying a physician for the mandated collaboration agreement and will be more willing to take on patients in underserved areas of the state. 

  • Modernize Tennessee’s system of healthcare by allowing Advanced Practice Registered Nurses to practice without collaborative agreements the way 25 other states, the District of Columbia and the VA Health system already do.  

  • Eliminate the excessive state mandates and regulations that mandate Advanced Practice Registered Nurses have collaborative agreements.
Talking Points to include in your email to Legislators:

SB2110/HB2203 will increase access to healthcare:

  • By eliminating the unwarranted bureaucratic restriction of requiring physician involvement for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses to provide patient care, Advanced Practice Registered Nurses can immediately fulfill our unmet healthcare needs in rural and underserved areas of the state where APRNs live and practice. We won’t have to wait for more healthcare providers to graduate or subsidize their education. 

  • Tennessee is ranked 44th nationally on health outcomes. Tennesseans’ health cannot afford to wait any longer. Advanced Practice Registered Nurses are out there now and ready to serve Tennesseans. 

  • Supporting APRN Full Practice Authority will give Tennesseans access to services that were otherwise unavailable. Even in well-served areas, increasing the access or supply of healthcare providers will tend to lower prices for any given level of demand, thus reducing healthcare costs.


SB2110/HB2203 will continue to allow APRNs to deliver high quality care and keep patients safe:

  • The data proves that patient outcomes from care provided by an APRN is equal to that of a physician.


SB2110/HB2203 will remove the restraint of trade created by TN laws and regulations:

  • Physicians use their market power to charge high collaboration fees to APRNs causing increased costs to consumers or taxpayers. Collaborative Agreement fees increase costs passed on to the patient with no direct patient benefit. It is basically a healthcare tax for being seen by an APRN.
 
  • The mandated collaboration agreement law creates a burden due to the difficulty of finding a physician who is willing to collaborate. 

  • Can you imagine the position an APRN is put in if his/her collaborating physician is suddenly unavailable? They would have to choose between not seeing their patients to comply with the law or providing care to their patients and breaking the law. 
Quotes from other organizations you can include in your email that support our legislative agenda:

  • The Federal Trade Commission: “We have not seen research suggesting that the safety or quality of primary care services declines when APRN supervision or collaborative practice requirements are lessened or eliminated.”

  • The National Governor’s Association: “Among the quality of care components that these studies measure are several process measures, among them patient’s satisfaction, time spent with patients, prescribing accuracy, and the provision of preventive education. In each of these categories, Nurse Practitioners provided at least equal quality of care to patients as compared to physicians.”

  • Institute of Medicine's Future of Nursing Report: “The contention that APRNs are less able than physicians to deliver care that is safe, effective and efficient is not supported by the decades of research that has examined this question.”

  • American Enterprise Institute: "We have reviewed a sizable body of evidence related to whether there was any difference in quality of care when it was provided by APRNs rather than physicians. There is extensive empirical evidence that APRN practice outcomes are at least equivalent to those of physicians to which they are compared. And on some metrics, such as patient satisfaction, some studies have found APRN care is actually better."

  • The Cato Institute: “When physician groups argue to restrict the scope of practice of nurse practitioners, they argue that a broader scope of practice would threaten patient safety. Yet study after study has shown midlevel clinicians provide a level of quality equal to that of physicians performing the same services.”