Eliminating scope of practice and licensing laws to improve health care.

Abstract

Entry into the practice of medicine is heavily regulated through scope of practice and licensing laws that make it illegal for nonlicensed individuals to perform many medical services. As institutions are structured at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most regulation takes place at the state level, through state departments of health that establish criteria for performing different types of medical activities, and that restrict allowable activities for various types of health care professionals. The regulations over the activities of physicians are more uniform across states than for other health care professionals because, although the regulation is done by individual state governments, the standards for physicians are set by the National Board of Medical Examiners, a group controlled by physicians themselves. The justification for this regulation is that it produces higher quality health care. Some would make an even stronger argument that regulation is necessary because patients do not have sufficient knowledge to distinguish effective practitioners from ineffective ones.