Collaborative Practice Agreement · PharmD

Arkansas Collaborative Practice Agreement (CPA) for Pharmacists

Required. The Collaborative Practice Agreement (CPA) is the written instrument Arkansas law names for a Pharmacist working with a physician. Below: the board that governs it, what it must contain, and the terms it has to carry.

Practice authoritySupervision required
Written agreementAgreement required
What Arkansas calls itCollaborative Practice Agreement (CPA)
Governing boardArkansas State Board of Pharmacy
Agreement familyCollaborative Practice
Research date2026-09-03 · clauses 2026-09-03

Represents Arkansas's Disease State Management (DSM) tier (Ark. Code Ann. § 17-92-101(16), § 17-92-205(a)), not base dispensing licensure. Requires a written, physician-approved protocol/patient care plan specific to an individual patient — protocol-dependent with no independence pathway.

What a Arkansas Collaborative Practice Agreement (CPA) must contain

Governed by the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy. Each numbered item is a statutory requirement the agreement must satisfy.

  1. The Pharmacist shall practice under a written Collaborative Practice Agreement ("CPA") with the Physician, who must have prescriptive authority, as authorized under the Arkansas Pharmacy Practice Act and Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy regulations. The Pharmacist shall keep a written copy of the CPA on file and shall produce it to the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy upon request.

    Source: Ark. Code Ann. § 17-92-101 et seq. and Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy Regulations

  2. The Collaborative Practice Agreement (CPA) on file also carries 2 scope, 1 education, 1 registration, 1 authority clauses, generated in the document itself.

Statutes and rules cited

  1. Ark. Code Ann. § 17-92-101 et seq. and Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy Regulationsboard rule

    Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy's own published Law Book, compiling the Pharmacy Practice Act and Board regulations governing collaborative practice agreements between pharmacists and practitioners with prescriptive authority.

Terms it has to carry

Ratio, proximity, chart review, meeting and prescribing terms the agreement has to carry, from the state's supervision rules.

Proximity

Not codified — left to the agreement

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 · no controlled-substance authority

DSM authority (Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy Regulation 9) is patient-specific and protocol-based for chronic-disease management (e.g. asthma, diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, anticoagulation) rather than a controlled-substance prescriptive grant — no controlled-substance authority was found for this tier.

Written agreement

Required

Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)

Non-licensee ownership permitted — Pharmacies are separately licensed premises under the Arkansas Pharmacy Practice Act; no CPOM-style ownership restriction analogous to medical PCs was found relevant to DSM pharmacists specifically.

Legal sources for these rules (2)
  • Ark. Code Ann. § 17-92-101(16), § 17-92-205(a) — Disease State Management
  • Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy Regulation 9 — Pharmaceutical Care/Patient Counseling
How the relationship works day to day
Who has to be where, how often you meet, and what the physician costs: Pharmacist in Arkansas on collaborativeagreement.com.

About Arkansas's rules

Act 412 of 2021 created a 6,240-hour Full Independent Practice Credentialing Committee (FIPCC) pathway for CNPs and CNSs only — CRNAs and CNMs are excluded from FIPCC and follow their own frameworks. CRNA independent-practice status is a genuine, unresolved ambiguity (see that entry) — a widely repeated 'Medicare opt-out' claim doesn't equal a change to AR's own supervision statute.

Other clinicians in Arkansas: see the state overview.