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Working Papers, No. 2017-08, 2017
Just What the Nurse Practitioner Ordered: Independent Prescriptive Authority and Population Mental Health (REVISED January 2019)

We examine whether relaxing occupational licensing to allow nurse practitioners (NPs)—registered nurses with advanced degrees—to prescribe medication without physician oversight improves population mental health. Exploiting time-series variation in independent prescriptive authority for NPs from 1990–2014, we find that broadening prescriptive authority leads to improvements in self-reported mental health and decreases in mental-health-related mortality, including suicides. These improvements are concentrated in areas that are underserved by physicians and among populations that have difficulty accessing physician-provided care. Our results demonstrate that extending prescriptive authority to NPs can help mitigate physician shortages and extend care to disadvantaged populations.

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