Help Make Advanced Practice Nurse expansions permanent in New Jersey

PLEASE HELP US SEND COMMUNITY IMPACT STATEMENTS!

YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT:

Dear [Legislator / Sponsor Name],

I write on behalf of IVs By The Seas, hundreds of small, local healthcare practices, and patients across New Jersey who are being profoundly affected by ongoing statutory restrictions placed on Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) and Nurse Practitioners (NPs).

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Executive Orders 112 and 292 temporarily lifted restrictive joint protocol requirements for APNs. These emergency measures allowed APNs to practice with expanded authority at a time when access to care was critical. Over this multi-year period, APNs demonstrated that they could safely and effectively provide care, expand patient access, and support an overburdened healthcare system without evidence of increased adverse outcomes.

Those emergency waivers were not made permanent. With the termination of the State of Emergency and the expiration of the executive authority that sustained these flexibilities, APNs were given only 30 days to restructure their practices under a statutory framework that has not been modernized to reflect the realities already proven in practice.

Today, New Jersey law continues to require:

• Physician collaboration agreements for the prescribing of controlled substances, and

• Mandatory management service organization (MSO) structures, under which a physician must own 100% of the medical components of a practice — often without ever seeing or treating a patient. This statute alone is beyond antiquated. 

As you know, Senate Bill S2996, introduced on January 13, 2026, would eliminate these outdated restrictions and grant full practice authority to APNs, aligning New Jersey with more than two-thirds (34 to be exact) of states that already permit APNs to practice to the full extent of their education, training, and licensure.

The impact of continued legislative inaction is real and severe:

• Practices like ours are facing closure, downsizing, or service reduction not due to lack of demand, but due to regulatory barriers that prevent APNs from practicing fully within their scope.

• Approximately 70% of the APN workforce is female, meaning these restrictions disproportionately affect women-owned businesses, female healthcare professionals, and the families who rely on them.

• Restrictive practice environments are driving APNs out of New Jersey or out of private, community-based practice models, directly limiting patient access — particularly in underserved and high-need areas.

APNs augment New Jersey’s healthcare system by providing diagnosis, treatment, patient education, and prescribing authority. Temporary executive waivers demonstrated that expanded APN practice improves access to care, alleviates provider shortages, and maintains patient safety. The continued failure to codify these lessons into permanent law now threatens the stability of community-based healthcare delivery across the state.

Despite the temporary lifting of the executive order that suspended outdated practice restrictions for Advanced Practice Nurses (APNs) in New Jersey during the COVID-19 emergency, the state still has not moved to permanently grant full practice authority to APNs as many other states have. The executive order (EO-112) issued in April 2020 removed statutory requirements like joint protocols with collaborating physicians and certain supervision mandates only for the duration of a state/public health emergency, but these changes were temporary and tied expressly to an emergency declaration rather than codified into lasting policy.

At the federal level, there is no standing executive order directly granting nationwide independent practice authority for APNs or nurse practitioners; rather, federal practice autonomy occurs in specific contexts, such as within the Veterans Health Administration, where federal regulations allow full practice authority for APRNs employed by VA facilities regardless of state restrictions.

Put together, New Jersey’s reliance on temporary emergency waivers, rather than permanent statutory reform, suggests a pattern of reactive, short-term fixes rather than proactive support for nurses to practice to the full extent of their training — even as other jurisdictions have moved forward with lasting full practice authority. This leaves many highly trained nurses without the autonomy they are capable of and patients without the expanded access to care that full practice authority can bring.

Respectfully, we request The following:

1. Publicly released Community Impact Statements from the Department of Health and other relevant stakeholders documenting the economic, workforce, and patient-access consequences of continued APN practice restrictions.

2. Your support in advancing Senate Bill S2996 to a floor vote before February 16, or give reasonable notice, given the urgent and foreseeable impact on healthcare access, small business viability, and workforce retention.

We appreciate the Legislature’s service to New Jersey and stand ready to provide testimony, data, and constituent outreach in support of the meaningful modernization of healthcare practice laws.

Respectfully,

[Your Full Name]