Protocol · NP · Nebraska
Practice Protocol for Nurse Practitioners in Nebraska
Required. Nebraska law names the instrument a Transition-to-Practice Arrangement, 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.
LB 107 (2015) replaced an ongoing collaborating-physician relationship with this one-time 2,000-hour threshold (§ 38-2317). The supervising provider during transition may be a physician or another NP with ≥10,000 hours of NP practice. After the threshold, no ongoing agreement is required.
Independent practice requires: ≥2,000 hours of practice under a transition-to-practice, collaborative, integrated, or independent-practice arrangement (or combination), completed in Nebraska or another state.
What a Nebraska Transition-to-Practice Arrangement must contain
Governed by the Nebraska Board of Nursing and the Nebraska State Board of Pharmacy. Each numbered item is a statutory requirement the Transition-to-Practice Arrangement must satisfy.
Unless the Nurse Practitioner has completed two thousand (2,000) hours of practice under a transition-to-practice arrangement, the Nurse Practitioner shall practice under such an arrangement with the Physician, as provided under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 38-2317. Once the Nurse Practitioner completes those hours, no ongoing arrangement is required for independent practice or prescribing.
Source: Neb. Rev. Stat. § 38-2317
The transition-to-practice arrangement is not itself filed with the Nebraska Board of Nursing; only evidence of the completed hours, and, where the supervising provider is another Nurse Practitioner, an attestation of that supervision, is submitted with the Nurse Practitioner's licensure application.
- The Transition-to-Practice Arrangement also carries 1 scope, 1 education and 1 registration clauses, authored in the document itself.
Statutes and rules these clauses cite
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 38-2317statute
Nurse Practitioner transition-to-practice arrangement required until 2,000 practice hours are completed.
Terms it has to carry
Ratio, proximity, chart review, meeting and prescribing terms the Transition-to-Practice Arrangement has to carry, from Nebraska's supervision rules.
Proximity
during the 2,000-hour transition-to-practice period: Available remotely (no on-site requirement)
Supervising provider must be 'readily available for consultation and direction' — no on-site or mile/minute radius standard is codified.
after completing the 2,000-hour threshold: No proximity requirement
No ongoing proximity/availability requirement once independent.
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
Covered by the practice agreement · controlled substances permitted
Requires a federal DEA registration; Nebraska does not issue a separate state controlled-substance registration.
Written agreement
Required
Required only during the pre-threshold transition-to-practice period — an NP who has completed 2,000 qualifying hours needs no ongoing agreement.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — Professional limited liability company under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-190 — an NP may independently own a single-discipline nursing-services PLLC; § 21-190 bars multi-discipline ownership (e.g., a physician and NP co-owning one entity across disciplines).
Sources for the supervision rules (4)
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 38-2317 — Nurse Practitioner; Licensure; Requirementssecondary
- Nebraska LB 107 (2015) — Advanced Practice Registered Nurse reformsecondary
- Nebraska DHHS — Statutes Relating to Nurse Practitioner Practice Act
- Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-190 — Professional Limited Liability Companies (single-discipline restriction)
About Nebraska's rules
LB 107 (2015) replaced ongoing APRN physician collaboration with a one-time 2,000-hour transition-to-practice period for nurse practitioners. Whether CRNAs and CNSs follow the identical threshold is not spelled out in statute; confirm before relying on those two entries. CNMs remain the most restricted category, unaffected by that reform.
Other clinicians in Nebraska: see the state overview.