Who Should Do What? Scope of Practice & Treatment Tech Shift Clinical Best Practices

There has been a long debate about the scope of health care practices. What type of licensed clinical professionals can perform particular functions? Should psychologists and/or pharmacists prescribe psychotropic medications? What supervision do nurse practitioners and physician assistants need? (Should 'physician assistants' be renamed 'physician associates'?)

Psychologists can prescribe in five states: Louisiana, New Mexico, Illinois, Iowa, and Idaho (see Can Psychologists Prescribe Medications?). The scope of pharmacists' practices is state-dependent and varies widely from state-to-state (see Mapping U.S. Statewide Protocols For Pharmacist Prescriptive Authority). Pharmacists may or may not give injections and immunizations and . . .