Research Program
Professional Licensing & Scope of Practice
Overview
I study how occupational licensing and scope-of-practice laws shape the health care workforce, clinical practice, access to care, and patient outcomes. This work includes research on nurse practitioners and physician assistants and examines the legal, economic, and health consequences of professional boundaries.
Selected Scholarship
The Relationship Between Ambulatory Sensitive Conditions and Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws
Benjamin J. McMichael
Journal of Nursing Regulation, 17(2) (2026).
Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws and Preventable Pediatric Hospitalizations
Benjamin J. McMichael
Medical Care Research and Review, 83(4): 239–250 (2026).
Nurse Practitioner Entrepreneurs—An Untapped Primary Care Lifeline
Monica O’Reilly-Jacob, Betty Rambur, Benjamin J. McMichael, and Jennifer Perloff
JAMA Health Forum, 7(1): e256200 (2026).
The Impact of Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws on Preventable Hospitalizations
Benjamin J. McMichael
Journal of Health Economics, 103: 103044 (2025).
Scope-of-Practice Laws and the Practice Patterns of Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
Benjamin J. McMichael
Contemporary Economic Policy, 43(1): 9–30 (2025).
Supply-Side Health Policy: The Impact of Scope-of-Practice Laws on Mortality
Benjamin J. McMichael
Journal of Public Economics, 222: 104901 (2023).
Toward a Uniform Classification of Nurse Practitioner Scope of Practice Laws
Benjamin J. McMichael and Sara Markowitz
Medical Care Research and Review, 80(4): 444–454 (2023).
The Access-to-Care Epidemic
Benjamin J. McMichael
Wake Forest Law Review, 56(3) (2021).
Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws and Opioid Prescribing
Benjamin J. McMichael
Milbank Quarterly, 99(3): 721–745 (2021).
Occupational Licensing and the Opioid Crisis
Benjamin J. McMichael
UC Davis Law Review, 54(2): 887–966 (2020).
Healthcare Licensing and Liability
Benjamin J. McMichael
Indiana Law Journal, 95(3): 821–881 (2020).
Shifting Liability with Licensing: An Empirical Analysis of Medical Malpractice and Scope-of-Practice Laws
Benjamin J. McMichael
Journal of Tort Law, 12(2): 213–253 (2019).
The Association of Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws with Emergency Department Use: Evidence from Medicaid Expansion
Benjamin J. McMichael, Joanne Spetz, and Peter I. Buerhaus
Medical Care, 57(5): 362–368 (2019).
Are PAs and NPs Interchangeable?
Roderick S. Hooker and Benjamin J. McMichael
Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, 32(9): 16–17 (2019).
Beyond Physicians: The Effect of Licensing and Liability Laws on Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants
Benjamin J. McMichael
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 15(4): 732–771 (2018).
The Extraregulatory Effect of Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws on Physician Malpractice Rates
Benjamin J. McMichael, Barbara J. Safriet, and Peter I. Buerhaus
Medical Care Research and Review, 75(3): 312–326 (2018).
The Demand for Healthcare Regulation: The Effect of Political Spending on Occupational Licensing Laws
Benjamin J. McMichael
Southern Economic Journal, 84(1): 297–316 (2017).
Data, Code & Interactive Research
Approved public datasets, replication materials, figures, and interactive research may be collected here where available.