NP led clinic- addressing the barriers

Barriers: Once the back to back agreement was in place it was then time to rearrange or in some cases discover other contracts with ACC, Maternity (section 88) . The initial barriers included not being able to sign off certain ACC forms, medical certificates, insurance medicals (for some organisations) Drivers licenses, certain medications, death and cremation certificates and disability certificates.

The 31st January 2018 has seen most of these barriers been removed for which i am extremely grateful to all parties who were party to addressing these!! However, we are still not paid for maternity services, as the ‘provider’ must be a “medical practitioner”.  This means the antenatal and post natal care we provide for free is not reimbursed by the MOH as it is for GPs. This is a loss I am frustrated by but prepared to carry in order to provide equality for our women. Unfortunately Drivers licences STILL cannot be signed by a NP but we are able to do the examination required for these. This won’t be rectified until October 2018, again an unnecessary barrier for our patients.