Next time youre a patient, ask whether your health-care provider is a doctor.

On Jan. 1, New York changed the standard for who can practice medicine, putting patients at risk. It became the 19th state to capitulate to aggressive lobbying by nursing groups to let some nurses play doctor without going to medical school.

In these states, nurse practitioners can do everything primary-care doctors do diagnose, treat, prescribe and even open their own independent practices once theyve worked 20 months under a physicians direction.

That is, can legally. That doesnt mean they have the know-how. And therein lies the danger.

Dont get me wrong: Nurses are the backbone of the health-care system, and generally theyre better than doctors at educating patients and providing many types of routine care.

But their training is different, and it doesnt prepare them to do everything doctors do especially diagnosing less common conditions.

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses whove earned an advanced degree. But theyve never been to medical school; they have half the years of training a doctor gets (generally six years beyond high school, instead of 12), and they dont take the same state licensing exam as doctors.

So youll be fine if you have a urinary-tract infection or a sprain. But dont assume they have the in-depth knowledge to diagnose an uncommon illness or handle a complex problem.

Indeed, Health Maintenance Organizations cooked up the term health-care provider to blur the differences between physicians and less expensive caregivers.

Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, a cardiologist at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, criticized New Yorks law when it was enacted last April.

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When a nurse is your health-care provider, youre at risk