Bipartisan Push Would Help Improve Nurse Practitioner Training

A bipartisan proposal in Congress would address a key problem confronting an American health-care system increasingly reliant on nurse practitioners: how to ensure they’re properly trained for their expanding roles.

As part of the maneuvering over a new tax plan, Democratic and Republican senators want to give a $2,000 tax credit to nurses and other health-care providers who commit to supervising, training and mentoring nursing students and newly hired nurses for at least 200 hours a year.

The bill, the PRECEPT Nurses Act, comes after a Bloomberg Businessweek seriesdocumented the growing role nurse practitioners play in the US health-care industry and the ...