Ep #136: Prepare for Professional Role Questions on Your NP Board Exams

Welcome to the Real Deal Nurse Practitioner Club, the podcast for nurses who are ready to pass their boards and thrive in their careers as real deal nurse practitioners. I’m Anna and I’m the Director of Nursing Content at Blueprint Test Prep. Whether you’re deep in exam prep or stepping into practice, I’ve got you. It is time to become the confident, knowledgeable NP that you’re meant to be. Let’s dive in.

Hey, hey everyone, it’s Anna and welcome back to the Real Deal Nurse Practitioner Club Podcast. Today I’m going to talk about the professional role of being an NP. And I know those professional role practice questions are one of the biggest requests we get from learners and those are really big on that ANCC board certification exam. But even if you plan on taking AANP, you still need to be prepared for your professional role in practice. I’ll dive a little bit more into what you need to know for your board exam, as well as what topics make up the professional role for NPs so that you can focus your studying. Alright, let’s get started.

First up, what is actually meant by NP professional role? Basically, it means everything that an NP can do. According to AANP, NP practice includes assessment, ordering and interpreting tests, diagnosing conditions and managing treatment, coordinating care, counseling and educating patients and families.

When you think of being a nurse practitioner, you might tend to think of assessing and diagnosing and managing the care for patients. And while those are certainly big aspects of NP practice, once you’ve started clinical hours in your program, you’ll likely have seen that there’s so much more to being an NP. The professional role really focuses on all of the other things that NPs do to not only care for their patients, but also how they contribute to healthcare systems.

And so this includes legal and ethical considerations that guide your practice. It includes understanding billing, coding, and all of the other financial aspects of healthcare as a provider. Even knowing how to communicate and collaborate with patients and other health care professionals.

Now reviewing professional role questions may not be the most exciting part of becoming a real deal NP or it may not seem as important as knowing how to diagnose conditions for example, but it is absolutely essential for your clinical practice after passing your board exam. And I mentioned before that ANCC does include a decent amount of professional role questions on their board exams, and AANP can even sprinkle those in as well.

Remember, being a nurse practitioner, it is more than assessment diagnosis and management plans. You need to know how to bill. You need to know how to interpret research to make evidence-based decisions. And we have to understand regulatory guidelines and scope of practice. So regardless of which exam you are taking, knowing your professional role as an NP is imperative.

So now we’ve talked about the importance of this to NP practice, let’s cover some of the main topics you’ll need to know. I also want to mention that in our most recent update of our course, our instructors added so many more amazing modules on the professional role and so definitely check out our updated course and I know you’re going to love it.

Okay very first topic is legal and ethical issues. For legal considerations, think of things like HIPAA that helps protect patient confidentiality and know how your scope of practice as a nurse practitioner is regulated. So here’s a quick question. Do you know what model was created to standardize the regulatory requirements for APRNs across all states? That is going to be the APRN consensus model, also known as LACE or L-A-C-E, which stands for licensure, accreditation, certification, and education.

And when reviewing ethical issues, you’ll also want to know the definitions for things like beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, equity, and autonomy. So which of those terms describes doing good for the benefit of others? Yeah, beneficence.

Okay, now let’s move on to the basics of research that nurse practitioners and other advanced practice nurses need to know. Depending on the type of program you’re in, such as a master’s level NP or the DNP, your exposure to research will be different. For the board exam, you’ll want to know things like the different levels of evidence in terms like validity, reliability, sensitivity, and specificity.

And here’s another little quick question for you. What describes a patient’s knowledgeable approval of a medical procedure or treatment after fully understanding the risks, benefits, and alternatives. That is informed consent. And informed consent is used in research, but it is also very common in your clinical practice for any procedures a patient completes.

All right, next up are the topics of collaboration and patient-centered care. So what do I mean by collaboration? Well, think of collaborating with other healthcare professionals and also with patients. But let me start with interprofessional collaboration. This can include things like using an electronic medical record to communicate with other providers and even using open communication.

Another big example of working with others as well as a legal consideration is charting. And remember, patient-centered care is a big topic. So starting off with levels of prevention in Healthy People 2030, what level of prevention includes vaccinations? Primary. And what about cancer screenings?

Well, that would fall under secondary prevention. And Healthy People 2030 has taken a greater look at social determinants of health and improving health literacy. So you’ll want to understand how socioeconomic status, level of education, amount of income, and other factors influence the health of individuals.

Another component of patient-centered care is cultural competence and inclusivity, which is your ability to provide respectful care to patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. A big part of that includes asking the patient about preferences, beliefs, and values, and not making assumptions. We also need to tailor communication to meet the needs of each patient, especially when it comes to patient education.

So what are some therapeutic communication techniques that we can use as NPs? Well, some big ones to remember and ones the exams like to ask about are motivational interviewing and shared decision making.

And then lastly, we also want to cover the business and financial aspect of health care. So part of the business of health care includes insurance. Now in the US, we have private and public health insurances. Public insurances include Medicare and Medicaid. So here’s another quick question for you. Which part of Medicare covers outpatient services? Medicare Part B.

Then you’ll also need to know how we get reimbursed for the services we provide. And there are several key pieces of legislation to be aware of here, including the Balanced Budget Act, the High Tech Act, and of course, the Affordable Care Act.

And then moving into billing, we need to know what is an E&M code? What’s a CPT code? When can you use incident to billing? And to spend a few seconds on incident to billing, why would we want to use this? Remember with incident to billing, the practice receives full reimbursement at 100% of the physician fee schedule instead of the usual 85% when billed under an NP’s NPI. However, there are specific rules to follow, like the physician must have initially seen the patient and established the plan of care, and the physician must be present in the building during the NP’s visit with the patient.

All right, I know this was just a brief overview episode, but hopefully you can see that there’s so much more to being an NP than just assessing, diagnosing, and prescribing. And understanding all of these aspects of your professional role is a key component of your board prep journey, but also to just becoming a real deal NP.

And so I hope this helps you feel a little bit more prepared about what to expect for professional role type questions on your board exam. And to learn all about all of these topics, definitely check out the resources that we have for you at smnpreviews.com. Thanks again for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Until next time, be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can find us on YouTube and Facebook. I’ll see you next time.

 Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Deal Nurse Practitioner Club. If you want more information about the different types of support that we offer to students and new nurse practitioners, you can visit npreviews, with an S, dot com. We’ll see you next week.