Protocol · PA · Maine
Practice Protocol for Physician Assistants in Maine
Required. Maine law names the instrument a Collaborative Agreement, and the clinical protocol is the content that instrument carries. Below: the board that governs it, what it must contain, and the terms it has to carry.
Below 4,000 hours, a PA must work under a collaborative agreement with an active physician describing scope of practice (32 M.R.S. § 2594-F). At/above 4,000 hours, a PA may be the principal clinical provider in a practice with no physician partner, but still needs a lighter 'practice agreement' addressing physician availability for collaboration/consultation — not full independence from any agreement at all.
Independent practice requires: ≥4,000 hours of documented clinical practice (verified to the Board of Licensure in Medicine).
What a Maine Collaborative Agreement must contain
Governed by the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine and the Maine Board of Pharmacy. Each numbered item is a statutory requirement the Collaborative Agreement must satisfy.
Unless the Physician Assistant ("PA") has submitted four thousand (4,000) documented clinical practice hours to the applicable board, in which case the Physician Assistant may practice as a principal clinical provider under a Practice Agreement stating that the Physician will be available for collaboration or consultation, the Physician Assistant shall practice under a Collaborative Agreement describing the Physician Assistant's scope of practice and the health care team's decision-making and communication process, as required by 32 M.R.S. § 3270-G (Board of Licensure in Medicine) or, if the Physician Assistant is licensed through the Board of Osteopathic Licensure, the mirror-image requirement of 32 M.R.S. § 2594-F.
Source: 32 M.R.S. § 3270-G
Either the Collaborative Agreement or the Practice Agreement must be submitted to, and approved by, the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine or the Maine Board of Osteopathic Licensure, as applicable to the Physician, and kept on file at the practice's main location for production to the Board upon request. Maine law does not fix a numerical limit on the number of Physician Assistants with whom a physician may enter into either agreement.
- The Collaborative Agreement also carries 1 scope, 1 education and 1 registration clauses, authored in the document itself.
Statutes and rules these clauses cite
- 32 M.R.S. § 3270-Gstatute
Physician associate scope-of-practice and Collaborative Agreement / Practice Agreement requirements under the Board of Licensure in Medicine.
Terms it has to carry
Ratio, proximity, chart review, meeting and prescribing terms the Collaborative Agreement has to carry, from Maine's supervision rules.
Proximity
under 4,000 hours of clinical practice (collaborative agreement): Available remotely (no on-site requirement)
32 M.R.S. § 2594-F states collaboration 'does not require the physical presence of the physician' and may occur through electronic means. No mile/minute radius is codified. A PA in a physician group practice or a facility with its own credentialing/privileging system may use that system in lieu of a collaborative agreement.
4,000+ hours of clinical practice (practice agreement, principal clinical provider): Available remotely (no on-site requirement)
The practice agreement need only state that a physician 'will be available to the physician assistant for collaboration or consultation' — no on-site requirement or fixed radius.
Supervision ratio
Not codified — no cap on file
Chart review
Not codified — left to the agreement
Meeting cadence
Not codified — left to the agreement
Prescriptive authority
Separate prescribing terms required · controlled substances permitted
PAs may prescribe controlled substances within the scope of the collaborative or practice agreement and need their own DEA registration. Maine does not state schedule-level restrictions such as a Schedule II day-supply cap.
Written agreement
Required
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required
This ownership question is legally distinct from the clinical collaborative/practice agreement above.
Sources for the supervision rules (3)
- 32 M.R.S. § 2594-F — Physician Assistant collaborative/practice agreementssecondary
- 32 M.R.S. § 3270-G — Collaborative agreement approval by the Board of Licensure in Medicine
- P.L. 2019, ch. 627 — An Act To Improve Access to Physician Assistant Care
About Maine's rules
Maine's provider categories follow different independence models: NPs graduate to full practice after 24 months of registered (not written-agreement) supervision; PAs graduate after 4,000 documented clinical hours but still need a lighter 'practice agreement' afterward; CNMs/CNSs appear independent from initial licensure; and CRNAs remain physician/dentist-accountable except in critical-access/rural hospitals. Do not assume a single APRN framework applies uniformly.
Other clinicians in Maine: see the state overview.