Certification and Licensure Plan
- Review practice agreements in your state. TEXAS
- Identify whether your state requires physician collaboration or supervision for nurse practitioners, and if so, what those requirements are.
- Research the following:
- How do you get certified and licensed as an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) in your state?
- What is the application process for certification in your state?
- What is your state’s board of nursing website?
- How does your state define the scope of practice of a nurse practitioner?
- What is included in your state practice agreement?
- How do you get a DEA license?
- Does your state have a prescription monitoring program (PMP)?
- How does your state describe a nurse practitioner’s controlled-substance prescriptive authority, and what nurse practitioner drug schedules are nurse practitioners authorized to prescribe?
Post a summary of your findings on your state based on the questions listed above. Explain the types of regulations that exist and the barriers that may impact nurse practitioner independent practice in your state. Be specific. Also, describe what surprised you from your research.
Certification and Licensure Plan
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Certification and Licensure Plan
Texas is one of the states in the US with restrictions on advanced practice registered nurses’ scope of practice. The practice agreements dictate that nurses must engage in at least one element of practice varying from supervision, and delegation to team management (Peterson, 2017). The agreement contains details like the nurse’s name, license number, and address. Texas APRN practice agreements, therefore, require that nurses collaborate with physicians to facilitate the provision of quality and safe care (Johnson & Harrison, 2022).
In Texas, the nurses must complete an advanced nursing education program, which they should undertake from a recognized and accredited organization by the Texas Board of Nursing. The nurses require to complete 20 hours of nursing education in the advanced practice specialty in 24 months. Texas defines the scope of practice as the activities performed by an individual healthcare provider during the delivery of care. The process of acquiring licensure to become an advanced practice registered nurse in Texas is done through an online application where the nurses should submit documents online.
Nurses applying for APRN licensure need to pay a fee of $100 while those that apply for licensure with prescriptive authority need to pay a licensing fee of $150. The fee is non-refundable (Texas Board of Nursing, 2022). The Texas Board of Nursing website is https://www.bon.texas.gov/practice_scope_of_practice_aprn.asp.html#. In Texas, the DEA number is usually applied online. However, the applicants must have full licensure for practicing as APRNs as well as prescriptive authority. Texas has a prescription-monitoring program that allows the practitioners to acquire the population’s full details such as detailed medical profiles, and drug histories that support safe prescription criteria.
The APRNs in Texas have a restricted practice that does not allow them to prescribe controlled substances unless with the authority of a physician. The prescriptive authority is provided to the APRN through a written document. The nurse practitioners may be delegated with the prescription and ordering of nonprescription, prescription drugs, and medical devices, which are labeled as legally dangerous drugs. They may also be delegated to order durable medical equipment and prescription schedules III-V controlled substances but with limitations. From the research, I was surprised to learn that Texas is one of the states with restricted APRN practice.
References
Johnson, A. H., & Harrison, T. C. (2022). Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Transition to Practice in the Long-Term Care Setting: An Ethnography. Global Qualitative Nursing Research, 9, 23333936221108701.
Peterson M. E. (2017). Barriers to Practice and the Impact on Health Care: A Nurse Practitioner Focus. Journal of the advanced practitioner in oncology, 8(1), 74–81.
Texas Board of Nursing. (2022). Advanced practice. Retrieved from https://www.bon.texas.gov/practice_scope_of_practice_aprn.asp.html#.