Nurse Practitioner prescription privileges

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To all you current pharmacy students and working pharmacists:

What are the prescribing privileges of NPs if they are not FNPs but specialized in pediatrics (PNP) or Women's (WHNP) for example. I know pediatricians can prescribe for adults if they wanted/needed to (something obviously not controlled), but can PNPs do the same or are they restricted to people under the age of 21 in their scope of practice? Can a WHNP prescribe for children and men or just women (say example a male friend needed help and needed a zpack or something)? How does their scope of practice affect their prescription capabilities? Do pharmacies have issues with NPs prescribing harmless antibiotics, BC, etc for themselves?

This is a question of state law, so there are many answers. In my state, the scope (and Rx Privs) of the NP are restricted to the area of practice of his/her supervising MD. In other words, anything the MD allows him/her to Rx, as long as it's consistent with state laws. We have some restrictions on NPs and prescribing controls.

Realistically, if your rx blank said "your name, NP" and a generic practice name i don't think anyone would think twice assuming that it was correctly written and not for anything weird. If you had a practice name and "pediatric women's NP" that might not fly as well but i'm sure RPhs would give you professional courtesy. For self-rx's, that's state law dependent but if you have a bunch of expired lisinopril rx's i'm sure noone will care if you write one for yourself.

However, legally that is a world of hurt/liability; depending on state laws this may not even be legal. MDs should have a patient/prescriber relationship and records/charts with anyone they're writing rx's for, whether it be a chantix rx to OCPs to chronic maintenance meds. And since legally PA/NP are working under an MD, you should be following the same rules + there should be some sort of defined practice agreement with that MD delineating what your scope of practice is and what meds are authorized to be prescribed. All it takes is one person to complain to the board of medicine/nursing/whatever, and you do not want them getting in your business.

Ultimately, it's really not worth it IMO; i'd rather have a 100k+ livelihood than risk it writing z-paks or maintenance meds for people who are too lazy to go see their PCP or whatever.

I once spoke to an MD who wanted to phone in (triamcinolone oint #454g UAD) for his horse. He didn't try to hide it; he even said it’s for an equine.

I didn't want to spend a lot of time explaining... So I just said I didn't have it in stock.

Stick to your specialty/practice!