Veronica Beagle is the managing editor for Education at Forbes Advisor. She completed her master’s in English at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Before coming to Forbes Advisor she worked on ...

Data shows nurse practitioners produce equivalent outcomes to physicians, even while serving patients with full-practice authority, according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.

Liz Simmons is an education staff writer at Forbes Advisor. She has written about higher education and career development for various online publications since 2016. She earned a master’s degree in ...

Are you preparing to take the nurse practitioner (NP) certification exam? Are you confused about which organizations offer certification or what kind of certification they offer? Do you wonder about ...

There is a need to address the high costs and often poor quality of healthcare in the United States. Many studies show that nurse practitioners (NPs) provide safe and high-quality care when compared ...

Twenty-seven states and Washington, D.C., grant nurse practitioners full practice authority as soon as they earn their licenses, according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. Utah ...

What Is a Nurse Practitioner? A nurse practitioner (NP) is a health care professional who offers a wide range of acute, primary, and specialty care services, either alone or alongside a doctor. The ...

As of July 2025, 30 states allow full practice authority for nurse practitioners, up from 22 before the pandemic. The temporary, nationwide expansion of nurse practitioner (NP) practice authority at ...

Nurse practitioners are among the fastest growing jobs in the US — making about $113,930 per year — and are in high demand in rural areas with few doctors. Yet some state regulations, called scope of ...

Credit: Getty Images. Researchers examine whether NPs/PAs working independently use more or less low-value care during ED visits than physicians or NPs/PAs working in collaboration with physicians.