Protocol · RN · Nebraska

Practice Protocol for Registered Nurses in Nebraska

Registered Nurses practice independently in Nebraska. A practice protocol is voluntary; here is what one covers and what the state does require.

Practice authorityIndependent practice
Written agreementNo agreement required
What Nebraska calls itNo instrument required
Licensing boardNebraska Board of Nursing
Research date2026-09-03 · clauses 2026-09-03

RNs (general licensure, not an APRN) are not subject to physician-supervision or collaborative-agreement requirements in Nebraska; RN practice is defined and governed by the Nurse Practice Act (§ 38-2212) without a physician-oversight gate.

What a voluntary Registered Nurse protocol covers in Nebraska

Nebraska requires no written protocol for registered nurses. These are the clauses a practice includes when it chooses to put one in writing. The Nebraska Board of Nursing governs registered nurses here.

  1. The Registered Nurse ("RN") shall practice under the orders, standing orders, or delegation of the Physician, consistent with the Nebraska Nurse Practice Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. Chapter 38, Article 22. Nebraska law does not require a supervision or collaboration 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.

  2. A voluntary protocol also carries 2 scope, 2 education and 2 registration clauses, authored in the document itself.

What Nebraska 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 Nebraska; they administer medications only under a valid medical order from an authorized prescriber.

Written agreement

Not required

Unconditional — general RN licensure is never subject to physician supervision or a collaborative agreement, unlike the APRN/PA categories above.

Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)

Non-licensee ownership permitted — General RN licensure does not require formation of a healing-arts Professional LLC (§ 21-190) — an RN may own non-clinical businesses (staffing, home health, the MSO/business side of a med-spa) without the ownership restriction applicable to entities delivering physician/APRN-level clinical services.

For medical-aesthetics businesses performing procedures reserved to physicians/APRNs, RN ownership of the business entity does not itself confer authority to perform those procedures.

Sources for the supervision rules (2)

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.