Protocol · RN · Louisiana
Practice Protocol for Registered Nurses in Louisiana
Registered Nurses practice independently in Louisiana. A practice protocol is voluntary; here is what one covers and what the state does require.
RNs (general licensure, not an APRN) are not subject to physician-supervision or collaborative-practice-agreement requirements in Louisiana. The Nurse Practice Act (R.S. 37:913) defines the practice of registered nursing around independent nursing judgment and the nursing process, categorically different from an APRN's CPA-gated diagnosis/prescribing authority.
What a voluntary Registered Nurse protocol covers in Louisiana
Louisiana requires no written protocol for registered nurses. These are the clauses a practice includes when it chooses to put one in writing. The Louisiana State Board of Nursing governs registered nurses here.
The Registered Nurse ("RN") shall practice under the orders, standing orders, or delegation of the Physician. Unlike the Collaborative Practice Agreement required of Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, Louisiana law does not require such an agreement for this Registered Nurse's general scope of practice; the Physician shall instead be available to the Registered Nurse for consultation regarding clinical and patient care issues arising under any order or delegation.
- A voluntary protocol also carries 2 scope, 2 education and 2 registration clauses, authored in the document itself.
What Louisiana does require
The supervision and prescribing rules that apply to registered nurses regardless of any protocol.
Proximity
Not codified
Supervision ratio
Not codified — no cap on file
Chart review
Not codified
Meeting cadence
Not codified
Prescriptive authority
No agreement needed to prescribe · no controlled-substance authority
RNs do not have independent prescriptive authority in Louisiana; they administer medications only as ordered/prescribed by a provider authorized by law to prescribe.
Written agreement
Not required
Unconditional — general RN licensure is never subject to physician supervision or a collaborative-practice/order-set agreement in Louisiana, unlike the APRN/PA/pharmacist categories above.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — Professional corporation or LLC under La. R.S. 12:901 et seq. for nursing services; non-clinical businesses an RN might own fall outside this framework
For medical-aesthetics (med-spa) businesses performing medical procedures such as Botox or laser, an RN likely may not independently own the clinical entity performing those procedures, by analogy to the North Carolina and Virginia pattern; Louisiana statute does not address it directly.
Sources for the supervision rules (2)
About Louisiana's rules
Louisiana remains a reduced-practice state for NPs; no SAVE Act-style full-practice-authority reform has passed. LA Admin. Code tit. 46 § 7911.A.5 references an hours-based exemption from the CPA requirement for NPs, CNMs and CNSs, but secondary sources give conflicting hour figures (1,000 vs. 2,080); confirm the threshold and resulting scope with LSBN before relying on it.
Other clinicians in Louisiana: see the state overview.