The MICNP Podcast: Inspiring, Informing, and Advocating for Nurse Practitioners

Episode 2: Full Practice Authority (FPA) Legislative Update-March 2025

• Jen McConnell, Justin Hooks, Rachel Hetzner • Season 1 • Episode 2

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In this episode of the MICNP podcast, hosts Jen McConnell and Rachel Hetzner engage with guests Naila Russell and Karla Ruest to discuss the current state of full practice authority for nurse practitioners in Michigan. They explore the importance of understanding one's value as a healthcare provider, the legislative efforts underway to achieve full practice authority, and the role of lobbyists in advocating for nurse practitioners. The conversation also highlights the historical context of nurse practitioners in Michigan, the need for increased engagement in policy, and the upcoming Advocacy Day event aimed at mobilizing support for legislative changes.

Takeaways

  • Use your voice and know your value as a nurse practitioner.
  • Full practice authority is about affirming existing skills, not expanding scope.
  • Legislative efforts are crucial for achieving full practice authority in Michigan.
  • Building relationships with legislators is key to effective advocacy.
  • The current political climate shows promise for bipartisan support of nurse practitioners.
  • Historical context shows the evolution of nurse practitioners in Michigan.
  • Engagement in policy is essential for nurse practitioners' future.
  • Advocacy Day is an opportunity for nurse practitioners to make their voices heard.
  • Support from patients can significantly impact legislative efforts.
  • Coalition building is vital for advancing nurse practitioner interests.

Resources

Theme music

Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners (MICNP): Website

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Rachel Hetzner (00:05)
Welcome to the MICNP podcast. I'm Rachel Hetzner, your president-elect. Join us as we bring you the latest insights, discussions, and expert perspectives on the evolving role of nurse practitioners in Michigan and beyond.

Jen McConnell (00:19)
Hosted by the Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners, MICNP this podcast is your go-to resource for advocacy, education, and professional growth. Whether you're a student, a seasoned NP, or a healthcare leader, we're here to keep you informed, inspired, and connected. Each episode will explore critical topics in clinical practice, healthcare policy, legislative updates, and professional development, all tailored to the unique needs of Michigan NPs.

Tune in as we amplify the voice of nurse practitioners and work together to shape the future of healthcare. Subscribe now and stay tuned for expert conversations, legislative updates, and the latest in NP practice in Michigan.

Justin Hooks (00:56)

This material is provided for entertainment, general information, and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide medical, legal, or professional advice. Nothing in this presentation, discussion, or material should be interpreted as establishing a client, provider, attorney, client, or other professional relationship. The views expressed by the speakers, guests, participants, and vendors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of MICNP Additionally, references to any specific products, services, organizations, or third-party entities do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by MICNP. No representation or warranty is made regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information provided. MICNP expressly disclaims any liability for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from the use of or reliance on the information provided. Participants and members of the audience should always consult their own healthcare providers, legal counsel, financial advisors, or professional advisors and qualified professionals for questions and advice. Any reliance on the information presented is solely at your own risk.


Rachel Hetzner (01:49)
Welcome to the MICNP podcast where we have Dr. Naila Russell, family nurse practitioner, legislative committee chair for MICNP and Karla Ruest, the MICNP lobbyist with us today. Welcome to our show. my name is Rachel Hetzner, president-elect for Michigan Council of Nurse Practitioners or MICNP and co-host of the MICNP podcast.

Jen McConnell (02:03)
Woo, yay!

Rachel Hetzner (02:15)
Justin, my co-host, has the night off for his birthday celebration, so he won't be with us today.

Jennifer McConnell (02:22)
Hello, I am Jen McConnell, PR and Marketing Chair for MICNP and Producer Stand-In Co-host of the MICNP Podcast. Before we jump into our topic of full practice authority and the legislative updates affecting our nurse practitioners in Michigan,

Jen McConnell (02:35)
can you introduce yourself to our listeners? Naila, do you want to start?

Naila Russell (02:40)
Yeah, thank you so much for having us on the podcast. So I am a family nurse practitioner. I graduated in 2013 as part of the inaugural BSN to DNP cohort at University of Michigan Flint. I do work as a nurse practitioner in dermatology, but probably one of the things I'm most passionate about is policy. So I've done a lot of my postgraduate work in policy, including getting a postgraduate certificate in media and medicine from Harvard Medical School and completing a two-year fellowship with the George Washington University Center for Media and Policy Engagement back in 2020 to 2022. I've also been a board member of the Michigan Council of Practitioners now, prior was on the Nurse Practitioner Association of Maryland Board and a part of their legislative committee for about seven years.

Jen McConnell (03:30)
Great.

Karla, do you want to introduce yourself?

Karla Ruest (03:33)
Sure. My name is Karla Ruest and I have worked in and around the legislature for 34 years. I've worked for several legislators throughout the years. I was a government affairs director for Health Plus of Michigan, which is a health insurance company. I later worked for TAP Pharmaceutical as one of their government relations folks. I represented five different states.

And then most recently I worked for DHHS as their government affairs director for over 10 years. So anything that dealt with healthcare came through my office, including appropriations as well as policy issues. So love healthcare. One of the things I love is it's ever changing as we always know, I'm a county commissioner here in Ingham County.

Rachel Hetzner (04:16)
a lot of experience, especially in healthcare. That's awesome. You're an asset to the organization

Jennifer McConnell (04:23)
So we ask our guests the same question in the beginning of every episode. If there was something that you know now that you wish you knew when you started your practice in healthcare, what would you tell that person? So Naila this question's for you. I know, this is a tough one.

Naila Russell (04:41)
It is a tough one and you know, was relatively young when I became a nurse practitioner. So I think that, and I would say this to anyone and everyone, and I tell students this all the time, use your voice and know your value. So when I was looking for my first nurse practitioner job, I was just basically like, please, someone hire me, anyone, right? And so I wasn't really asking a lot of questions or knowing fully what I was getting myself into. Luckily, I was fortunate to get into a great practice I wasn't taken advantage of. But specifically, I didn't really know, again, my value. So, you know, that dreaded question of like, what do you want your salary to be? I way lowballed. And fortunately, the practice manager, she looked at it, she kind of laughed out loud and said, it'll be way more than that. But you know, they could have taken advantage of me. So I just think that everyone needs to kind of know the setting that you're entering, but know the value that you bring as a provider to a practice. Never undervalue yourself and never feel like you can't use your voice because it's essential.

Rachel Hetzner (05:43)
I think that's such important advice, especially as a nurse practitioner, because I can see a lot of NPs doing that. But you're right, we do need to know our value.

Jen McConnell (05:53)
Yeah, that's really good advice. So first of all, Naila, you have experience working in a state with full practice authority. So prior to coming to our restricted practice in Michigan. So what has that been like for you?

Naila Russell (06:10)
Yeah, well, so I actually did start out my first few years in Michigan as an NP And so I learned a lot in that setting, although it was restricted practice. During that time, the public health code was amended to kind of give us prescriptive authority. But when I moved to Maryland, it was a completely different practice arena. It was really interesting to see the different level of respect actually that nurse practitioners had within the system because they had full practice authority. Maryland got full practice authority back in 2015 and I moved there in 2017. So, you know, with regulations needing to be updated and things, it really had been operationalized for about a year. but in that time, you know, it was just amazing to see like no one in my organization in Michigan ever asked me or wanted me to use the title doctor. But when I moved to Maryland, they actually were like, why aren't you using your title? Like, don't you want us to refer to you as Dr. Russell? So it was just a very different kind of environment to be practicing in. But I think what's also more important to note on a high level is that nurse practitioners have more opportunities to have a seat at the table once we achieve full practice authority. 

Unfortunately, our resources are so tied up in getting rid of these antiquated regulations that we can't weigh in on things like health equity and all of the other important policies that we should be caring about for patient care. So when you're in a state like Maryland, you have an opportunity to really have a voice to look at legislation in a more holistic way and have an opportunity to make a difference. So that's to me. now practice wise, we do the same things. We diagnose, we prescribe, we treat.

We make referrals, we interpret tests. It's the same thing. We refer to our colleagues who are physicians or non-physicians, right? But it really is just about getting that level of respect and having more opportunities. And that's what we really need to see in Michigan.

Rachel Hetzner (08:17)
Well, what an amazing experience getting to do that in a full practice authority state. And I think a lot of people think that it's going to change our scope significantly, or it's going to, have us practice outside of what we're trained to do. But like you said, we're still doing the same things. It's just, and that level of respect too, is one of those indirect results of it which is really neat to see and awesome that you got to experience that and bring that back to MICNP too.

Naila Russell (08:50)
Yeah, yeah, I do want to just say too, and I know we'll dig into full practice authority, but it's important for all of us to know that what we're working on is not an increase in scope. It's not scope creep. It's not a scope bill. We should never phrase it that way because we're not trying to do anything that we aren't educated to do. We're taking the regulations, we're moving them into statute, and we're affirming what it is that we have been educated to do.

Absolutely, I think it's so important to think about what that will mean for us.

Rachel Hetzner (09:21)
Exactly. Well, thank you for all of your legislative efforts with MICNP. So a lot of members don't fully know what all of our committees do, so could you give them a little rundown on what you're working on right now in the MICNP Legislative Committee?

Naila Russell (09:38)
so prior to MICNP having a legislative committee, they had a legislative task force. And so I think the nice thing about being a full committee is that we can expand the scope of what we're doing. Like I said, we really do have to put most of our resources in the full practice authority bucket because that's essential. We need to get there in Michigan. So that's number one. We strategize on our full practice authority bill. We learn about where we are. We talk about different stakeholders, how can we keep moving our priorities forward? But because we have the legislative committee, we're also able to look and talk about other legislative priorities. So we are part of a huge coalition and shout out to Karla for helping broadening our coalition since coming on board as our lobbyist. But that coalition is a two-way street. So they have legislative priorities and they want MICNP to support them in kind, right? And so when they come to Karla or the lobby team at Dykema who represents the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, they might say something like, hey, we have legislation and we would like MICNP to support because we believe this is important and we think nurse practitioners should weigh in. 

So most recently we looked at a 340B package, which is related to critical access hospitals and other hospitals being able to give prescriptions to patients at protected rates. so the legislative committee reviewed the proposal or the bill package essentially and was able to vote as a committee. Do want to say that yes, MICNP should support this and then make that recommendation to the board. And then the board is able to be looped in on these things. So that's really important work. And then the committee also has some subcommittees that can be active at different points in time. So most recently our advocacy day planning subcommittee.

They're in charge of putting together all of the agenda, even ordering food, all the things for advocacy day, which is coming up soon. And I think we're going to talk about that at the end. But it's an important work. And as you can see, there's a lot of things that we have to do. So to have a subcommittee focus on that is really important.

Rachel Hetzner (11:44)
So Karla, oftentimes there's a lot of confusion about the role of a lobbyist and what they do every day. We see you working so hard to help us here at MICNP from early in the morning to late at night. Can you explain to those who are unfamiliar with lobbyists what a typical work week might look like for you?

Karla Ruest (12:04)
Sure, so we are what we call a multi-client lobby firm here in Lansing. We represent several different clients. My clientele is all health and human services related. I have a lot of family agencies as well as healthcare agencies. So we totally specialize in the human services side of things. What's really nice about that is there are so many synergies that run across each of the clients that we really, I feel like have a well-rounded perspective on a lot of the issues.

We can look at it from all different sides. And if we need to look at compromise, we can look at it from somebody else's point of view and see if there's a way that we can come to the table with some different ideas. So what we do is we work with these organizations to strategize and move their policies forward. That might be policies, but we also work on the appropriation side to make sure that the Medicaid reimbursement rate is adequate, as adequate as possible and make sure that if there's something in particular that an organization needs that we will advocate on that behalf. A typical work day for us here in Lansing is we usually begin at seven or 7:30 in the morning, going to fundraisers for different legislators. then committee hearings start usually around 8:30 in the morning and we'll go off and on all day long. So we'll be in different committees, either listening to what's going on, offering suggestions, whether we support different legislation or oppose different legislation. Additionally, we will meet with as many legislators as we can. Right now, we're meeting with just a ton of legislators to talk about full practice authority. And then in the evenings, many times we'll be at dinners. And the reason we go out to these dinners is it's all about building relationships.

The last thing we want to do is walk into a legislator's office when we need their vote for something and that be the first time that we have a conversation with them. So we really work hard to build relationships with our legislators, whether that's in meetings or if that's out in their district. Right now we're spending a lot of time going out to legislators district. Legislators are more relaxed in their districts and we can have a better conversation there. So that's what we do is build relationships and advocate on your behalf.

Jen McConnell (14:06)
Wow, that sounds like a lot of hard work and a lot of travel.

Karla Ruest (14:09)
That's a lot of miles on the car.

Rachel Hetzner (14:14)
I think you really hit the nail on the head there though when you said the first interaction that you have with a legislator shouldn't be asking for their vote. So really that is such a huge part of your job is building relationships. So that's neat. Yeah.

Jen McConnell (14:14)
Yeah

Karla Ruest (14:22)
Yeah.

Jen McConnell (14:31)
Yeah, that is great. 

Karla Ruest (14:32)
We work very hard at that.

Jen McConnell (14:35)
Well, thank you so much for all of your hard work, Karla. We really appreciate it. I do have a question that everyone wants to know. So we know that the full practice bill was Senate Bill 279. So that was the end of last year. So where are we at with that and getting full practice authority now?

Naila Russell (14:55)
Yeah, unfortunately, Senate Bill 279 did fail to move in the 23-24 legislative session. And that was definitely not without effort. Even into the lame duck session, it was amazing the different strategies that were being proposed and, you know, if the stars aligned may have worked out. Unfortunately, things, you know, can get a little bit political that had nothing to do with nurse practitioners and so things don't move. But we learned a lot from that legislative session, just like we do every single time. And so full practice authority will definitely live on in the form of a new bill. We've already done a lot of groundwork to review the bill draft, get the language just right, make sure that we know exactly where every legislator lands on this issue and continue to build those relationships.

We've even moved the needle significantly on people who were seen, legislators who were seen specifically as roadblocks in the past are not so much anymore. And that's a lot to do with changing dynamics in the legislature, but also the hard work and effort that MICNP has put in, and certainly Karla's office as well. So Karla, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about strategy and timing.

Karla Ruest (16:03)
Yep, so we're we actually have have what's called the blue back and that is what gets introduced and it will become a House bill We are getting ready to introduce the bills we're going to introduce it in the House of Representatives We should be introducing that in the upcoming weeks and then we expect to have a hearing hopefully early this in the spring and once we have a hearing. We are confident that we have the votes in the House Health Policy Committee. We just need to get a hearing and be able to get it voted out. So what we're doing right now is we're meeting with all the health policy members, re-securing their votes, making sure that they have answers to folks that may be in opposition, make sure that they have the answers that are needed, working with them to make sure that we have their support they have any questions at all, we're answering their questions. And then on top of that, because we believe we have all the votes in the committee, we're spreading out to all 110 members of the House of Representatives to make sure that we have enough votes that once this hits the floor, we can get it passed out.

Jen McConnell (17:04)
And we did go over a lot of that information in our first podcast. It was very, very brief, though, as to how things work. So if people are sitting here listening, going, what, what are you talking about committees and House and Senate? They can always go back and listen to the first podcast and get a little more information. And we left some resources for them, because some of us have not really talked about like the House of Representatives in the Senate since we were in fifth grade. And because some people are just not very political. So some people don't understand that and need a little review.

Karla Ruest (17:39)
can I add, we do have over 35 different associations that have been in support of this legislation. So one of the things that we're also working on is making sure that those organizations are with us again this year. So we're reaffirming all of their support just to make sure that they're there if we need them.

Jen McConnell (17:56)
Wow, that's amazing. There are so many moving parts. No wonder it takes so many people in committees and just like you said, that synergy that you need to get things moving. We talked about how it really depends on who's in the House and who's in the Senate and what they know about the bill. So Karla, you going in there and forming relationships, we're understanding that that's so, so important to getting this to where we need it to even get voted on or put in as a bill.

Rachel Hetzner (17:57)
awesome.

Jen McConnell (18:22)
that's really exciting to hear that too, though, that it's moving forward. so for those that maybe haven't been following where these bills have gone and maybe some newer nurse practitioners that wonder, how come we don't have full practice authority? And what's been happening with this? And why is this starting now when it's been an issue and other states have passed it? So maybe, Naila, you can give us a quick historic perspective of full practice authority in Michigan.

Naila Russell (18:50)
Yeah, so I think that it's important, especially for new nurse practitioners to remember that the NP profession's only been around since 1965, right? And the first 20 years were kind of like the wild west. It wasn't really until Idaho defined what an NP was in the early 1980s that they were even regulated really at the state level. and our public health code was initially adopted in 1978 and there's been amendments along the way, which have kind of changed the way that NPs are defined in Michigan, the way that NPs can practice in Michigan. But, it really is a young profession, right? So we have to think back into like the 1980s. The attorney general of Michigan actually said at that point that a physician could delegate prescribing to a registered professional nurse. There was no definition of what an advanced practice registered nurse was back in the 1980s. That actually didn't even happen until much, much, much longer in our history. So in 1999, they actually then said that physicians could also delegate controlled substances to nurse practitioners. So it's kind of been like this trickling effect where because a prescriber is defined by the state of Michigan as a physician, anyone else who's prescribing has to be delegated that. 

Now we are fortunate that that actually did change back in 2016 when, house bill 5400 was passed. and what that did is amended the public, act 499 And it said then that nurse practitioners had prescriptive authority. It also defined what advanced practice registered nurses were because until that point. We did not exist. We were just nurse practitioners who were delegated these abilities or nurses delegated these abilities and what they kind of had to do though at that point, and you have to keep in mind that House Bill 5400 actually was born out of the failure of Senate Bill 2, and I'll talk about Senate Bill 2 in a minute, but Senate Bill 2 was a full practice authority bill. House Bill 5400 kind of had to revamp the way that it was functioning because they realized that full practice authority wasn't going to happen, but they could at least define what an APRN was and they could get prescriptive authority into the public health code. And so that's what they did. And so that was a huge update for us in the state of Michigan. But going back, like I said, the previous legislative session in 2013, Senate Bill 2 was introduced and that was a full-practice authority bill. I will say there's a lot of people who commiserate about, Senate Bill 2, it almost passed, it passed under the Senate, it died in the House. It's true and it would have been great. It would have been great, but...

That was not a clean bill like we have now. That actually required a mentorship, either from a physician or a nurse practitioner that had been practicing for five years. So the American Association of Nurse Practitioners calls that a transition to practice. And we have, as a profession, had to do that often to become a quote unquote green state, a full practice authority state, right? Actually, Maryland has an 18 month mentorship. It doesn't have to be a physician. It can be an NP but there is a mentorship. So we would have been one of those states who also had that. The challenge is that you're kind of getting it piecemeal, but it's not perfect, right? And so now we're, 10 plus years later and we can actually have an opportunity to get a clean bill through that doesn't have any stipulations on when and how we can practice. So I think it's actually a good thing that Senate Bill 2 didn't make it out of the House in the long run.

And the reason that happened is because there was a lot of physician opposition, including two physicians who sat on the House Health Policy Committee at that time. So there was no way that bill was going to move out of the House. Organized medicine continues to be our number one opposition. We know that. But like Karla said, we have an amazing coalition of support that is exceptionally broad and the opposition is physician groups. So it just doesn't compare well when you're putting it side by side. Senate Bill 680 then was introduced in the 2021-2022 session by Senator Outman, which was pretty similar to what Senate Bill 279 looked like. Unfortunately, didn't move. And then Senate Bill 279 was introduced by Senator Erwin in the 23-24 session and didn't move. But those were cleaner bills than Senate Bill 2. And what we're introducing this year is going to be even cleaner still. And we are set up in a way that, like I said, the stars have to align, the stars are starting to align for MICNP.

Jen McConnell (23:32)
Wow, that's so much hard work has been done.

Rachel Hetzner (23:34)
Talk about Senate bill 2 And that was what I wrote my health policy analysis paper on way back when. And I remember the conversations that I would have with people like getting into it with certain positions seems like a lifetime ago, but we fight on.

Naila Russell (23:43)
Yeah. Exactly. And like I said, I think we might actually be better off that that didn't pass because Maryland is now in a boat where they're trying to repeal that mentorship and that's going to be a hard fight. And in fact, according to AANP there have been no states who have been able to repeal a transition to practice. you know, it's not the early 2010s anymore. It's 2025. We don't need to make that compromise. We're going to do this clean and it's going to get over the finish line.

Jen McConnell (24:05)
Hmm.

Yeah, that's great.

Karla Ruest (24:25)
Just to add to that, I could, in regard to why we will have a new bill number. So Senate Bill 279 did die at the end of last year. Every two years, all the legislation dies. It has to be reintroduced. So we will have new bill numbers and we should have those in the next couple of weeks and then hopefully we will be able to get moving. The cool thing about this is it has allowed us time to get different organizations on board with us. have everyone from the unions are on board with us for the first time ever. And so that's important. And then we have some very conservative think tanks that have joined with us as well. The Mackinac Center, for instance, the Economic Alliance, those are very conservative groups. So we have such as a wide spectrum of supporters out there. You we have the senior citizens with AARP, we have the health plans, we have the hospitals, we have the community mental health association. We just have been able to really build a great coalition moving forward and we think that that will be a huge asset to us as we go before committee because literally the only folks that will be opposed to it will be the physician groups.

Naila Russell (25:29)
Yeah, and such a good point, it's bipartisan, right? So I mean, because the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans, it's going to be a Republican sponsored bill in the House and it's going to be a Democrat sponsored bill in the Senate. But, you know, even without that, we had bipartisan support and that just shows, how broad this coalition of support is and how much really Michigan supports this bill.

Karla Ruest (25:35)
Yes, very much.

Naila Russell (25:56)
Everybody's on board.

Rachel Hetzner (25:58)
In the current political climate to have bipartisan support on anything, I think that's a pretty powerful thing.

Karla Ruest (26:04)
Yes.

Jen McConnell (26:05)
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, do you think having these other states come through with full practice authority has really given examples that other, you know, these representatives can see, hey, you know, it's working in this state. I mean, I think that benefits us in Michigan, right?

Naila Russell (26:20)
Yeah, I like to tell them it's working and look the sky isn't falling right. And also, you know, they are curious when I tell them that I worked in a full practice authority, state and they want to know what does that mean? And how did I practice? And so they are curious and they do see the changes that are happening across the country.

Karla Ruest (26:22)
Love it.

Right.

Rachel Hetzner (26:27)
Hahaha.

Karla Ruest (26:41)
And we are actually using that with the legislators to talk about that. We're also talking about the states around us that do not have full authority and the fact that we can educate our nurse practitioners, number one, keep them in the state of Michigan if we have full authority. And number two, if we were able to get full authority, we can recruit from the nearby states that do have more restrictive practice to come into the state of Michigan, therefore, hopefully building our healthcare network up even stronger.

Rachel Hetzner (27:08)
So what would your recommendations be to get other NPs involved in policy?

Naila Russell (27:15)
I think that, it's hard, going back to that first question you asked me, don't be afraid to use your voice. so this is an issue we have to use our voice on. There's a lot of people who are nurse practitioners in Michigan and elsewhere who just don't feel like FPA matters or pertains to them or the way that they practice.

But it does matter for all of us. It matters because it's going to get us that respect. It's going to get us that seat at the table. all the noise will fall away and we can actually then advocate for what's important to our patients and their care when we can put this behind us. so I know that everybody's insanely busy. Everybody on this podcast today is insanely busy. So if you can't be on the committee or you can't do what we're doing, that's okay. it can be as small as donating to the PAC because we do need money in order to attend legislator events and to try to do what we can to maintain access. And then there's also just things like attending coffee hours. think Rachel reinforced that the first time you talk to a legislator, it shouldn't be to ask them to vote for something. They want to know you. You're their constituent--you're in their district. And so what you think matters and the fact that you take care of their constituents really matters too, because, every single person in Michigan is accessing the healthcare system at some point. And so this is an issue that should matter to every single legislator. So if you can't donate to PAC, you know, at least look out for calls to action and send out those emails when we ask you, just do whatever you can because we need all hands on deck.

Karla Ruest (28:37)
We will be sending out a call to action very soon. And that call to action will be to contact your state representative. That is so important because they will listen to their constituents far more than they listen to me. They see me every day of the week walking around Lansing, but when their constituents call, that really makes a difference. And one of the other things when we ask if you would be willing to support the legislation, please be sure to let us know that we can put a card of support in on your behalf in committee. Our goal is just to have a huge stack of cards from nurse practitioners and other organizations that support the legislation. If you're able to attend the committee hearing when we have it scheduled, of course, that's always if we can have a huge show of nurse practitioners in the audience, that's a huge plus on our behalf as well. We have a very, very supportive committee chair and he is he is just saying make sure you're very organized.

Jen McConnell (29:38)
Yeah, I've also heard a lot of people say, I've had patients that said, how can I help? Like, can I, if I send a letter, if I call my local representative, does that help you? You know, and a lot of people think I'm just one person, but it's all of those one people that end up, you know, really pushing. Cause we can say as nurse practitioners, we really want this. But if we have patients out there saying no, I love going to a nurse practitioner. there wasn't a doctor in my area because I'm in a rural area or whatever the case is and we provide additional support that they wouldn't have otherwise. So that's really important too.

Karla Ruest (30:12)
Super important.

Naila Russell (30:14)
Yeah, I think just one point is can't make this bill about us. we're not doing this because we're for nurse practitioners... I mean, certainly it's important for our profession, but again, it's all about patient care. It's about patient access and making sure that patients have the choice to see the provider that they want to see. And, the case is that patients want to be able to choose an NP and we need to allow them to do that in the state.

Rachel Hetzner (30:40)
Well, Naila and Karla, it has been a true honor to have you as a part of our podcast. Can you tell us about the upcoming event that you have?

Naila Russell (30:51)
Yeah, advocacy day is going to be April 9th, 2025 from 830 to 4 at Heritage Hall, which is actually on the Capitol grounds. So it's really amazing. We did the same thing last year and it turned out to be an amazing event. because we're right there in the Capitol, a lot of the legislators just kind of spilled into our lunch, even those who didn't RSVP and we had an incredible turnout and opportunity to engage with a lot of legislators. 

So at that event, you'll learn a little bit about our legislative priorities. You'll get to hear from some legislators, including, I'd like to add, Representative Long John, who is new to being a legislature, but he's also new to the Health Policy Committee, and he's a physician, and he loves nurse practitioners. So we are turning the tide. I know, it's really amazing. So he's going to be our special guest.

Jen McConnell (31:39)
Yay!

Rachel Hetzner (31:39)
Woohoo!

Naila Russell (31:44)
Along with Senator Hauck, who is the Senate Health Policy Committee and has been very supportive and really just gets it. Those of you who weren't at the hearing last year, if you want to listen to it, I highly recommend. But he was the one who was just like, ugh, I'm not worried about the opioid prescribing. We have protections in place. And he kind of shut down the opposition. So I was like, I want him at Advocacy Day. And Karla was able to get him to come. It's going to be a great event!

Jennifer McConnell (32:16)
Naila, that sounds great. And we will post in the show notes everything that you need to know about how to sign up for Advocacy Day and all the great things that are going on. So with all good things, we know they must come to an end. So that's a wrap. Tune in as we amplify the voice of nurse practitioners and work together to shape the future of health care. Subscribe now and stay tuned for expert conversations, legislative updates, and the latest in NP practice in Michigan.

I know you can't wait for the next episode because we can't either. Trust me, it's coming soon. See you next time. Bye.


People on this episode

Head Shot

Justin Hooks

Co-host
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Rachel Hetzner

Co-host
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Jen McConnell

Producer
Contributor

Karla Ruest

Guest
Contributor

Naila Russell

Guest