THE COSTS OF TRAINING AND THE INCOME GENERATION POTENTIAL OF PEDIATRIC NURSE PRACTITIONERS

The costs of training and the dollar income generation yields have been calculated for 26 graduates of the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Program of the Bunker Hill Health Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital employed in private practice settings. Training costs were estimated from the program experience. Income generated by the nurse was estimated from data reported by nurse and employer 6 months or more after graduation from the program. Direct educational costs were estimated at $1,410 per nurse, institutional overhead at $346 per nurse, production losses (associated with the training time of 17 weeks) at $1,442 per nurse. Total cost of training was $3,197 per nurse. The average annual salary paid 26 pediatric nurse practitioners in private practice settings was $9,100 per year and the average number of "nurseonly" face-to-face patient encounters of all types, projected for full-lime employment, was 65 per week. Net income generation potential over and above salary averaged $2,500 per nurse per year with 14 of the 26 nurses capable of generating more than $3,000 per year over and above their current net salaries. These estimates must be interpreted with caution, but they suggest that the private sector of medicine can defray training costs in full in cases where the paying demand for its services is greater than physicians can supply themselves.