Health Coaching in Nurse Practitioner–led Group Visits for Chronic Care

• The group visit setting provides a unique opportunity for peer support and a healing community among chronically ill patients.
• Health coaching can strengthen nurse practitioner–led group visits by enhancing peer support through an interdisciplinary approach.
• There are barriers to implement the effective health coaching in a group visit setting regarding reimbursement, extra cost to hire health coach, no regulations for standardized qualifications of health coaches, and others.

Health coaching and group visits are emerging as 2 effective strategies to improve patients’ behavior in chronic care management. The purpose of this article is to describe a novel approach for behavior modification that integrates health coaching with group visits facilitated by nurse practitioners. Health coaching can strengthen nurse practitioner–led group visits by enhancing peer support through an interdisciplinary approach. This article also highlights the similarities and the differences between the 2 strategies, provides a relevant theoretic foundation, and summarizes important steps to apply health coaching in practice and overcome barriers with reimbursement.