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Practice Agreement · PA

Physician Assistant Practice Agreement in New Mexico

New Mexico law does not require a Physician Assistant 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 authoritySupervision required
Written agreementAgreement required
What New Mexico calls itNo named instrument
Governing boardNew Mexico Medical Board and the New Mexico Board of Pharmacy
Agreement familySupervising Physician
Research date2026-09-03 · clauses 2026-09-03

No independent-practice pathway exists — a PA must always practice under a licensed physician relationship. After ~3 years under physician supervision, the statute's language shifts from 'supervision' to 'collaboration' with a physician (§ 61-6C-8, NMSA), which loosens day-to-day involvement but does not remove the physician relationship itself.

What a Physician Assistant practice agreement covers in New Mexico

Governed by the New Mexico Medical Board and the New Mexico Board of Pharmacy. Each numbered item is a statutory requirement the agreement must satisfy.

  1. The Physician Assistant ("PA") shall be supervised by the Physician, who remains individually liable for the Physician Assistant's delegated acts, as provided under the Physician Assistant Act, NMSA §§ 61-6C-1 et seq., and 16.10.15 NMAC. New Mexico law does not fix a numerical limit on the number of Physician Assistants a physician may supervise, and does not require a separate written agreement beyond this Agreement, provided the Parties maintain direct communication sufficient for effective supervision.

  2. If the Physician Assistant has at least three (3) years of supervised clinical practice and works in a primary care specialty (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, geriatrics, or obstetrics and gynecology), the Physician Assistant may instead practice through collaboration with the Physician rather than supervision, in which case physical presence is not required and the Physician does not assume legal responsibility for the Physician Assistant's care to the same extent as under supervision. The Physician Assistant shall inform the New Mexico Medical Board of the identity of the supervising or collaborating physician.

  3. The agreement on file also carries 1 scope, 1 education, 1 registration clauses, generated in the document itself.

Statutes and rules cited

  1. NMSA 1978 §§ 61-11B-1 to 61-11B-3 (Pharmacist Prescriptive Authority Act)statute

    Official New Mexico Medical Board-hosted compilation of NMSA 1978 Chapter 61, including the Pharmacist Prescriptive Authority Act governing pharmacist clinician prescriptive authority.

  2. 16.19.4 NMACregulation

    New Mexico Board of Pharmacy rule governing pharmacist clinician certification, protocol requirements, and 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

Available remotely (no on-site requirement)

16.10.15 NMAC: collaboration/supervision 'shall not be construed to require the physical presence of the licensed physician at the time and place services are rendered' — effective supervision requires 'on-going availability of direct communication, either face-to-face or by electronic means,' with a means for immediate communication. No mile/minute radius is codified.

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

May prescribe Schedule II–V controlled substances under physician supervision/collaboration and an established PA-patient relationship (Controlled Substances Act; PAs are defined as 'practitioners'); requires state controlled-substance registration and DEA registration. No schedule-specific day-supply cap was found in this research pass.

Written agreement

Required

Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)

Licensee-only ownership required — New Mexico professional corporations must be owned entirely by licensees of the same profession — a PA-owned PC cannot include physician co-owners, and a physician-owned PC cannot include a PA. New Mexico has no CPOM doctrine restricting non-licensee employment of physicians generally (1987 A.G. opinion), but the professional-corporation single-profession rule is a separate, narrower restriction.

Whether a PA can independently own a single-profession PA-only PC (as opposed to needing a physician-owned entity to practice through) was not confirmed — treat as an open item.

Legal sources for these rules (4)
How the relationship works day to day
Who has to be where, how often you meet, and what the physician costs: Physician Assistant in New Mexico on collaborativeagreement.com.

About New Mexico's rules

New Mexico has no corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine (1987 A.G. opinion) — non-physician entities may employ physicians if clinical judgment isn't controlled — but professional corporations must still be single-profession owned (a PA/NP/etc. entity can't mix ownership with physicians). NP/CRNA/CNM/CNS practice independently with full prescriptive authority (Schedules II–V); PA remains the outlier requiring ongoing physician involvement.

Other clinicians in New Mexico: see the state overview.