Nurse Practitioner: Physician Violated Collaborative Practice Agreement.

Nurse Practitioner: Physician Violated Collaborative Practice Agreement.

Legal Eagle Eye Newsletter for the Nursing Profession

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The nurse practitioner’s patient, a high-risk individual with a history of depression, suicide attempts and polysubstance abuse, died from a mixed drug reaction to Lortab, Wellbutrin, lithium and Xanax prescribed by the nurse practitioner over a period of three months. COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA December 31, 2015

A nurse practitioner had her own independent practice under the auspices of a collaborative practice agreement with a family practice physician. The physician had agreements with eleven other nurse practitioners and himself worked more than ninety hours each week serving his own patients. The collaborative practice agreement required the physician, among other things, to review at least five percent of the nurse practitioners’ charts on a weekly basis, as required by state law. The physician admitted in court that he never reviewed any of this nurse practitioner’s charts or examined her practices for prescribing controlled substances.

The Court of Appeals of Indiana ruled that the physician could be held liable, along with the nurse practitioner, based on his failure to oversee the nurse practitioner’s practice as he was required by law.

The Court did state that if a supervising physician fulfills the physician’s legal duty to review the required set number of charts and finds nothing wrong, the physician would not be liable for malpractice committed by the nurse practitioner in the care of a patient whose chart was not reviewed. Collip v. Ratts, __ N.E. 3d __, 2015 WL 9589777 (December 31, 2015).