Family Nurse Practitioner Careers

Provide care to patients of all life stages. Develop relationships with entire family units.

Family nurse practitioners (FNPs) provide a wide range of family-focused primary care services to patients across the lifespan. FNPs conduct health assessments and tests and provide preventive care, disease management, treatment of chronic and acute illnesses. Much like a physician, an FNP is able to diagnose health concerns and may even prescribe medication, depending on which state they practice in.

Family nurse practitioners enjoy the range of patients they can treat- people of all ages, from infants to geriatrics. Other NP specialties are narrow in scope and focus on a specific age group, branch of medicine, or medical setting.

FNPs are in demand

The AAMC reports that the U.S. will experience a physician shortage of between 46,900 and 121,900 positions by 2032. Nurse practitioners are well-positioned to help fill gaps in health care as they are now able to alleviate many of the duties and responsibilities of a physician. As the physician shortage worsens, the BLS has projected that overall employment for nurse practitioners will have increased by 52% between 2019-2029. As of May, 2021, there were 325,000 licensed nurse practitioners in the U.S., according to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP).

Average FNP Salary: $96,281*

*Payscale.com

FNP responsibilities include:

Conducting physical and health assessments
Performing diagnostic tests and analyzing results
Prescribing medications
Developing treatment plans for acute and chronic illnesses
Providing education and guidance on disease prevention and healthy lifestyle habits
Facilitating preventive care and disease management
Managing patient care for patients of all ages

Common practice settings include:

Community health centers
Hospital outpatient clinics
Private group practices
Private physician practices
Health care systems
Educational services
Occupational health
Nursing homes
Government facilities
Military medical departments

Did You Know?*

The top diagnoses treated by FNPs are abdominal pain, urinary tract infection and gastroesophageal reflux disease.
The top clinical focus areas for FNPs are family, primary care and urgent care.
The majority of full-time NPs (59.4%) see three or more patients per hour.

*AANP