Nurse Practitioner Chronicles

 COLORECTAL CANCER SCREENING UPDATE | CLINICAL PRACTICE SERIES June 2026 | NP Chronicles Clinical Education The ACS Just Updated Its Colorectal Cancer Screening Guideline. Here’s What NPs Need to Know. By Valerie Watters-Burke, DNSc, MSN, MBA, FNP-BC, GNP-BC, PPCNP-BC On stool-based molecular testing, blood-based screening, and why “the best test” is still the one the patient actually completes CLINICAL AND PROFESSIONAL BOTTOM LINE The 2026 American Cancer Society colorectal cancer screening guideline does not change the core age recommendations: average-risk adults should still begin screening at age 45, continue through age 75 if life expectancy is greater than 10 years, individualize screening decisions from ages 76 to 85, and generally stop screening after age 85. What is new is the screening menu. The ACS now recognizes newly approved molecular stool-based tests — including the multitarget stool RNA test and next-generation multitarget stool DNA test — as prefer...

  PATIENT RIGHTS & PRACTICE POLICY   |   PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE SERIES June 2026   |   NP Chronicles Clinical Education   Your Patient Is Recording This Appointment. Now What? A Legal and Clinical Guide for NPs By Valerie Watters-Burke, DNSc, MSN, MBA, FNP-BC, GNP-BC, PPCNP-BC On patient rights, provider obligations, and what HIPAA actually says about recording — and what it doesn't   CLINICAL AND PROFESSIONAL BOTTOM LINE In most of the United States — including states like Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, New York, and approximately 39 others — patients may lawfully record their own medical appointment without telling you. The law in these one-party consent states allows anyone who is a participant in a conversation to record it. Your patient is not a bystander to their own care visit. They are a party to it. HIPAA does not prohibit this. Office policy does not legally prohibit this. And telling a...