Practice characteristics of nurse practitioners in mental health and psychiatric settings.

To explore the practice characteristics of nurse practitioners in mental health and psychiatric settings, descriptive statistics and multivariable logistic regression models were constructed with weighted data from the 2012 National Sample Survey of Nurse Practitioners. The 5.6% of nurse practitioners in mental health and psychiatric settings were less likely to have hospital admitting privileges and more likely to practice without a physician on-site, to have their own billing number, and to have a DEA number. These findings highlight the critical role that nurse practitioners play in the behavioral health workforce.