Practice Agreement · RN

Registered Nurse Practice Agreement in Connecticut

Connecticut law does not require a Registered Nurse to hold a named agreement with a physician. Practices still use one to define the working relationship; here is what it covers and what the state does require.

Practice authorityIndependent practice
Written agreementNo agreement required
What Connecticut calls itNo instrument required
Governing boardConnecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing
Research date2026-09-03 · clauses 2026-09-03

RNs (general licensure, not an APRN) are not subject to a physician-supervision or collaborative-agreement requirement in Connecticut. §20-87a(a) defines RN practice as including 'executing the medical regimen under the direction of a licensed physician, dentist or advanced practice registered nurse' for individual orders — categorically different from the APRN collaboration relationship above, which gates the RN's independent-diagnosis scope, not general RN licensure itself.

What a Registered Nurse practice agreement covers in Connecticut

Governed by the Connecticut Board of Examiners for Nursing. Each numbered item is a statutory requirement the agreement must satisfy.

  1. The Registered Nurse ("RN") shall practice under the orders, standing orders, or delegation of the Physician, consistent with the Connecticut Nurse Practice Act, Conn. Gen. Stat. ch. 378. Connecticut law does not require a collaborative or delegation 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. The agreement on file also carries 2 scope, 2 education, 2 registration clauses, generated in the document itself.

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

RNs do not have independent prescriptive authority in Connecticut; they execute the medical regimen and administer medications only as ordered by a physician, dentist, APRN, or other practitioner authorized by law to prescribe (§20-87a(a)).

Written agreement

Not required

Unconditional — general RN licensure is never subject to a collaboration requirement in Connecticut, unlike the APRN categories above.

Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)

Licensee-only ownership required — Professional Service Corporation under § 33-182a — RNs are an independently eligible licensee category and may wholly own a PSC rendering nursing services without physician participation.

Non-clinical businesses an RN might own (staffing agency, home health agency) fall outside § 33-182a's licensed-service PSC framework entirely and carry no ownership restriction.

Legal sources for these rules (2)

About Connecticut's rules

NP, CNS, and CRNA are all licensed as a single 'advanced practice registered nurse' category (§20-94a) sharing an identical 3-year/2,000-hour collaboration-to-independence pathway (§20-87a); CT does not statutorily distinguish PMHNP or CNS scope from general NP. CNMs are licensed separately (Ch. 377), with no written collaborative-agreement requirement. No provider type below has a codified supervision ratio cap, chart-review percentage, or on-site proximity radius outside CRNA's surgery-specific carve-out.

Other clinicians in Connecticut: see the state overview.