These online NP degree mills are scary.

Started by amyl
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nurse.org

Nurse Practitioner Dr. Scharmaine Baker Convicted in $12.1M Medicare Fraud Scheme

Louisiana nurse practitioner Scharmaine Baker was convicted for her role in a $12.1 million Medicare fraud scheme involving unnecessary genetic cancer tests. Once a respected NP and author, Baker now faces serious prison time for healthcare fraud.
nurse.org nurse.org

Anyone see this? Checking men for cervical cancer? What? Apparently her DNP degree was all online…. The school advertises as all online except 2 days at the end to present some paper. They also advertise no application fee and no GRE requirements. Scary af. I wonder how many patients she hurt in addition to the fraud. And yes it’s annoying how this nurse based site refers to her as doctor, which she is not.
 
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A lot of the NPs in our hospital go to Walden University which has zero inpatient training.

They then request privileges for ortho or cardiac with zero training.

Fortunately we have a good onboarding and rigorous privileging criteria for each specialty but it is crazy that NPs basically get paid training to do their jobs with zero education or training in their specialty.
 
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amyl said:
nurse.org

Nurse Practitioner Dr. Scharmaine Baker Convicted in $12.1M Medicare Fraud Scheme

Louisiana nurse practitioner Scharmaine Baker was convicted for her role in a $12.1 million Medicare fraud scheme involving unnecessary genetic cancer tests. Once a respected NP and author, Baker now faces serious prison time for healthcare fraud.
nurse.org nurse.org

Anyone see this? Checking men for cervical cancer? What? Apparently her NP degree was all online…. The school advertises as all online except 2 days at the end to present some paper. They also advertise no application fee and no GRE requirements. Scary af. I wonder how many patients she hurt in addition to the fraud. And yes it’s annoying how this nurse based site refers to her as doctor, which she is not.
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So I think you may be confusing her NP and her DNP.

Her MSN-NP, from Tennessee State, requires 600 clinical hours. Still nothing compared to us (like 1.5 or more orders of magnitude less), but not zero either.

Her DNP, from Chatham, requires 500 "practice experience" hours but these can be in things like admin or informatics which is not unusual in pure DNP programs as they are designed to give NPs the right to call themselves Doctor but the coursework is usually admin/health system oriented.
 
Playing devils advocate like I usually do.

What about us old timers who did more than 80 hours a week of anesthesia compared to the younger docs?

So our extra 15-20 hrs a week was for nothing? The weeks in the icu were killer.

Anesthesia hours were better than surgery hours but most programs back pre 2004 average closer to 90 hrs. Some New York programs were over 100 hr

Surgery was closer to 110 hr a week

So our extra hours didn’t make us better doctors while on training. And surgeon hours much less as well. Maybe that explains why some docs suck coming out of residency. …..
 
aneftp said:
Playing devils advocate like I usually do.

What about us old timers who did more than 80 hours a week of anesthesia compared to the younger docs?

So our extra 15-20 hrs a week was for nothing? The weeks in the icu were killer.

Anesthesia hours were better than surgery hours but most programs back pre 2004 average closer to 90 hrs. Some New York programs were over 100 hr

Surgery was closer to 110 hr a week

So our extra hours didn’t make us better doctors while on training. And surgeon hours much less as well. Maybe that explains why some docs suck coming out of residency. …..
Click to expand...


I trained before 2004 in a reputedly hard working program and almost never broke 80hrs in a week. Only exception might have been ICU months where postcall teaching rounds took forever. Average week was likely 60-65 hrs.
 
nimbus said:
I trained before 2004 in a reputedly hard working program and almost never broke 80hrs in a week. Only exception might have been ICU months where postcall teaching rounds took forever. Average week was likely 60-65 hrs.
Click to expand...
Many New York programs got crushed.

So hours varied per institution.


I averaged around 86 hrs. The institution across town hit 94 hrs. We traded hours worked near the end as the law was taken effect the last 6 months.
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
So I think you may be confusing her NP and her DNP.

Her MSN-NP, from Tennessee State, requires 600 clinical hours. Still nothing compared to us (like 1.5 or more orders of magnitude less), but not zero either.

Her DNP, from Chatham, requires 500 "practice experience" hours but these can be in things like admin or informatics which is not unusual in pure DNP programs as they are designed to give NPs the right to call themselves Doctor but the coursework is usually admin/health system oriented.
Click to expand...
Fixed - thanks
 
A lot of the NPs in our hospital go to Walden University which has zero inpatient training.

They then request privileges for ortho or cardiac with zero training.

Fortunately we have a good onboarding and rigorous privileging criteria for them, but again, 100% online and no inpatient experience.
 
aneftp said:
Many New York programs got crushed.

So hours varied per institution.


I averaged around 86 hrs. The institution across town hit 94 hrs. We traded hours worked near the end as the law was taken effect the last 6 months.
Click to expand...


Then I’m glad I got out of NY. Academic medical culture there felt unnecessarily intense which is one of the reasons I left.
 
aneftp said:
Playing devils advocate like I usually do.

What about us old timers who did more than 80 hours a week of anesthesia compared to the younger docs?

So our extra 15-20 hrs a week was for nothing? The weeks in the icu were killer.

Anesthesia hours were better than surgery hours but most programs back pre 2004 average closer to 90 hrs. Some New York programs were over 100 hr

Surgery was closer to 110 hr a week

So our extra hours didn’t make us better doctors while on training. And surgeon hours much less as well. Maybe that explains why some docs suck coming out of residency. …..
Click to expand...
Absolutely.

There is a point at which there is diminishing returns. Also, efficiency is a big factor. Those weeks in ICU are of minimal practical use for a community anesthesiologist

Also, the base strength and capabilities of the candidate matters as well.

The baseline capabilities of an anesthesia resident now are much higher than before ( med schools require better scores, higher gpas, more volunteer, etc)
Plus anesthesia residencies are harder to get into now than ever before.

A Nurse has vastly less training, less baseline capabilities as well, and they go through BS training (admin, etc) to pad their hours
 
UscGhost said:
Absolutely.

There is a point at which there is diminishing returns. Also, efficiency is a big factor. Those weeks in ICU are of minimal practical use for a community anesthesiologist

Also, the base strength and capabilities of the candidate matters as well.

The baseline capabilities of an anesthesia resident now are much higher than before ( med schools require better scores, higher gpas, more volunteer, etc)
Plus anesthesia residencies are harder to get into now than ever before.

A Nurse has vastly less training, less baseline capabilities as well, and they go through BS training (admin, etc) to pad their hours
Click to expand...
The weeks in ICU are what separate you from a nurse. Being used to clean up addon lists of lap appies and choles is the fluff that ends up wasting your time.
 
gunnershow said:
The weeks in ICU are what separate you from a nurse. Being used to clean up addon lists of lap appies and choles is the fluff that ends up wasting your time.
Click to expand...
Actively managing patients in the OR is vastly more useful.

I couldnt care less how much time a resident spent in icu.

I dont need residents who can place chest tubes, perform a thoracentesis, run a dka insulin protocol..

I need someone who has done liver tx, cardiac, ob, peds, trauma, airway codes

We put the crnas in the lap appy. The residents do the big cases
 
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UscGhost said:
Actively managing patients in the OR is vastly more useful.

I couldnt care less how much time a resident spent in icu.

I dont need residents who can place chest tubes, perform a thoracentesis, run a dka insulin protocol..

I need someone who has done liver tx, cardiac, ob, peds, trauma, airway codes

We put the crnas in the lap appy. The residents do the big cases
Click to expand...


Sometimes patients with dead bowel come to the OR in DKA. Better know how to manage it.
 
Part of the way the genetic test scams work (and same for urine toxicology) is the more things you test for the more you can bill. So the NP wasn’t specifically looking for cervical cancer but included it in the panel ordered just to maximize billing
 
VA Hopeful Dr said:
So I think you may be confusing her NP and her DNP.

Her MSN-NP, from Tennessee State, requires 600 clinical hours. Still nothing compared to us (like 1.5 or more orders of magnitude less), but not zero either.

Her DNP, from Chatham, requires 500 "practice experience" hours but these can be in things like admin or informatics which is not unusual in pure DNP programs as they are designed to give NPs the right to call themselves Doctor but the coursework is usually admin/health system oriented.
Click to expand...
1.5? What?

How were your MS3-4 hours? Medical students without residency have 3-4x clinical hours more than NP. If I were to count my hours for M3/4 and PGY 1-3, it would be > 13k. I am sure for FM it is going to be 8k-10k.

Also, most of these NP hours are preceptorship/shadowing hours.
 
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NICMAN said:
A lot of the NPs in our hospital go to Walden University which has zero inpatient training.

They then request privileges for ortho or cardiac with zero training.

Fortunately we have a good onboarding and rigorous privileging criteria for them, but again, 100% online and no inpatient experience.
Click to expand...
One of our NP/DNP 'hospitalists' was reported by someone for putting Dr Jane Doe, DNP in her social media handle. Administration asked her to remove the Dr even if she specified that she was a DNP. They also revoked 3 years ago NP/PA dinning room and physician parking access. These midlevels were pissed. I guess 'the deep south is still the old boys club' according to one of our NPs.
 
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Splenda88 said:
They also revoked 3 years ago NP/PA dinning room and physician parking access. These midlevels were pissed. I guess 'the deep south is still the old boys club' according to one of our NPs.
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All they need to do is go to medical school and then complete a residency to be a part of that particular “old boys club”.

With all the propaganda spewed around by various Nursing organizations, they should be able to easily do it since it isn’t hard… right?
 
CopaceticOne said:
All they need to do is go to medical school and then complete a residency to be a part of that particular “old boys club”.

With all the propaganda spewed around by various Nursing organizations, they should be able to easily do it since it isn’t hard… right?
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Take all these prereqs and the MCAT is hard. Since there is a backdoor to practice medicine, most RN choose that backdoor.
 
we only have ourselves to blame bringing in clown providers and not have them take the same tests to at least say well they still passed step 1,2,3.

Without mid levels you and other fields would only see your demand and pay go up. Literally we got screwed in the payment system with insurances and then we even allowed this to happen. good grief. Cant wait for the NP sugeons to come soon enuf i mean they are already scoping and stenting. Glad to be out of this circus in 2030.
 
finalpsychyear said:
we only have ourselves to blame bringing in clown providers and not have them take the same tests to at least say well they still passed step 1,2,3.

Without mid levels you and other fields would only see your demand and pay go up. Literally we got screwed in the payment system with insurances and then we even allowed this to happen. good grief. Cant wait for the NP sugeons to come soon enuf i mean they are already scoping and stenting. Glad to be out of this circus in 2030.
Click to expand...
When that happens, it will only be fair for med school to be 2-yr prereqs, 2-yr med school and 2-5 yrs residency. I know that will never happen because the people medical school attract have some type of superiority complex.
 
finalpsychyear said:
we only have ourselves to blame bringing in clown providers and not have them take the same tests to at least say well they still passed step 1,2,3.
Click to expand...

I’m glad they don’t take the exams. There’s exam knowledge and real world knowledge. Furthermore, doing well on these exams doesn’t necessarily translate to clinical judgement. I know terrible doctors who crushed the exams.

Exams are a hurdle, but it’s too low a hurdle and would legitimize non-doctors.
 
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aneftp said:
2087 hrs is considered 1 year of work full time. So they are saying after 2 years of experience they can be independent.
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Funny thing is with the way these NPs bounce around they might do 2 years in a med spa, then bounce to cardiology as independent. Some NPs know what’s going on and some it feels like they’ve never been in a hospital before. I guess that may actually be the case. What a time to be alive.
 
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