Nurse Practitioner
Quick Facts
Median Salary$124,630
Most Common EducationMaster's degree
Projected 10-Year Growth+42.01%
Assessment MatchTake the Assessment
What They Do
A Nurse Practitioner provides primary care and nursing care to patients. Performs physical exams, orders diagnostic tests, and provides medications. Works in a physician's office or other healthcare facility, under the direction of a physician. Performs work similar to that of a physician assistant but has different medical training and degree.
Core Tasks:
- Maintain complete and detailed records of patients' health care plans and prognoses.
- Develop treatment plans, based on scientific rationale, standards of care, and professional practice guidelines.
- Analyze and interpret patients' histories, symptoms, physical findings, or diagnostic information to develop appropriate diagnoses.
- Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability.
- Diagnose or treat complex, unstable, comorbid, episodic, or emergency conditions in collaboration with other health care providers as necessary.
- Prescribe medication dosages, routes, and frequencies, based on such patient characteristics as age and gender.
- Diagnose or treat chronic health care problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
- Prescribe medications based on efficacy, safety, and cost as legally authorized.
- Diagnose or treat acute health care problems, such as illnesses, infections, or injuries.
- Detect and respond to adverse drug reactions, with special attention to vulnerable populations such as infants, children, pregnant and lactating women, or older adults.
- Recommend diagnostic or therapeutic interventions with attention to safety, cost, invasiveness, simplicity, acceptability, adherence, and efficacy.
- Educate patients about self-management of acute or chronic illnesses, tailoring instructions to patients' individual circumstances.
- Counsel patients about drug regimens and possible side effects or interactions with other substances, such as food supplements, over-the-counter (OTC) medications, or herbal remedies.
- Order, perform, or interpret the results of diagnostic tests, such as complete blood counts (CBCs), electrocardiograms (EKGs), and radiographs (x-rays).
- Maintain current knowledge of state legal regulations for nurse practitioner practice, including reimbursement of services.
- Treat or refer patients for primary care conditions, such as headaches, hypertension, urinary tract infections, upper respiratory infections, and dermatological conditions.
- Consult with, or refer patients to, appropriate specialists when conditions exceed the scope of practice or expertise.
- Recommend interventions to modify behavior associated with health risks.
- Read current literature, talk with colleagues, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in nursing.
- Schedule follow-up visits to monitor patients or evaluate health or illness care.
- Perform routine or annual physical examinations.
- Maintain departmental policies and procedures in areas such as safety and infection control.
- Advocate for accessible health care that minimizes environmental health risks.
- Perform primary care procedures such as suturing, splinting, administering immunizations, taking cultures, and debriding wounds.
- Provide patients or caregivers with assistance in locating health care resources.
- Keep abreast of regulatory processes and payer systems, such as Medicare, Medicaid, managed care, and private sources.
- Supervise or coordinate patient care or support staff activities.
What to expect as a Nurse Practitioner
1Earn a Master's degree
39% of people achieve this level of education.
2Gain skills and experience
See Nurse Practitioner related courses on Tallo
3Land a job
18556 openings for Nurse Practitioners
Career Progression
in United States (Nation)
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