Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Wage Differences by Employment Setting

•PCNPs in primary care earned 7.1% less than those in specialty care settings.•About 96% of these wage differences were due to unobserved factors.•Unobserved factors may reflect working environment and payment policy.•Actions are needed to adjust payment policy for retaining PCNPs in primary care. B...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nursing outlook 2018-11, Vol.66 (6), p.528-538
Main Authors: Li, Yin, Holmes, George “Mark”, Fraher, Erin P., Mark, Barbara A., Jones, Cheryl B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Humans
Nurse Clinicians - economics
Nurse Practitioner
Nurse Practitioners - economics
Nursing
Primary Care
Primary Care Nursing
Salaries and Fringe Benefits
Specialty Care
United States
Wage Difference
Workplace
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•PCNPs in primary care earned 7.1% less than those in specialty care settings.•About 96% of these wage differences were due to unobserved factors.•Unobserved factors may reflect working environment and payment policy.•Actions are needed to adjust payment policy for retaining PCNPs in primary care. Background: Previous studies reported that primary care nurse practitioners working in primary care settings may earn less than those working in specialty care settings. However, few studies have examined why such wage difference exists.Purpose: This study used human capital theory to determine the degree to which the wage differences between PCNPs working in primary care versus specialty care settings is driven by the differences in PCNPs’ characteristics. Feasible generalized least squares regression was used to examine the wage differences for PCNPs working in primary care and specialty care settings.Methods: A cross-sectional, secondary data analysis was conducted using the restricted file of 2012 National Sample Survey of Nurse Practitioners.Findings: Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition technique was used to explore the factors contributing to wage differences.The results suggested that hourly wages of PCNPs working in primary care settings were, on average, 7.1% lower than PCNPs working in specialty care settings, holding PCNPs’ socio-demographic, human capital, and employment characteristics constant. Approximately 4% of this wage difference was explained by PCNPs’ characteristics; but 96% of these differences were due to unexplained factors.Discussion: A large, unexplained wage difference exists between PCNPs working in primary care and specialty care settings.
ISSN:0029-6554
1528-3968
DOI:10.1016/j.outlook.2018.06.009