Practice Agreement · PA
Physician Assistant Practice Agreement in New York
New York 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.
No independent-practice pathway exists — supervision (not a 'practice agreement') is required for the life of the PA's practice. A 2024 reform (eff. Feb. 2025) raised, not removed, the supervision ratio; a pending bill (S7981/A7988) to create a 6,000-hour independence pathway remains stuck in committee as of this research.
What a Physician Assistant practice agreement covers in New York
Governed by the New York State Education Department, State Board for Medicine, and State Board for Pharmacy. Each numbered item is a statutory requirement the agreement must satisfy.
The Physician Assistant ("PA") shall perform medical services only under the continuous supervision of the Physician, as required by Education Law § 6542. Supervision must be continuous but does not require the Physician's physical presence at the time or place a service is rendered.
Source: N.Y. Educ. Law § 6542
A supervising physician may not supervise more than six (6) Physician Assistants at one time in a private practice setting (no fixed numerical limit applies in a hospital setting), consistent with New York law. Consistent with that law, the Physician Assistant may prescribe durable medical equipment, issue non-patient-specific standing orders, authorize a Registered Nurse to provide non-patient-specific care such as immunizations, and write inpatient equipment orders, in each case subject to the terms of this Agreement.
- The agreement on file also carries 1 scope, 1 education, 1 registration clauses, generated in the document itself.
Statutes and rules cited
- N.Y. Educ. Law § 6902statute
Defines the practice of nursing and the Nurse Practitioner written practice agreement requirement, including the 3,600-hour independent-practice threshold (currently scheduled to sunset July 1, 2030).
- NYSED Office of the Professions -- Practice Requirements for Nurse Practitionersboard guidance
State Education Department guidance summarizing current Nurse Practitioner practice agreement and chart-review requirements.
- N.Y. Educ. Law § 6542statute
Requires continuous physician supervision of a Physician Assistant's performance of medical services.
- N.Y. Educ. Law § 6801-astatute
Collaborative Drug Therapy Management Demonstration Program, limited to qualifying teaching/general hospitals and certain nursing homes.
- 8 NYCRR § 63.10; NYSED Collaborative Drug Therapy Management guidanceboard guidance
State Education Department's official page describing the Collaborative Drug Therapy Management program for pharmacists.
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)
Educ. Law §6542: supervision 'shall not be construed as necessarily requiring the physical presence of the supervising physician at the time and place where such services are performed' — no mileage/radius or on-site standard codified.
Supervision ratio
private practice: Up to 6 at a time
Educ. Law §6542, as amended by A.8378-A/S.9038-A (signed Dec. 2024, eff. Feb. 22, 2025) — raised from a prior 1:4 cap. Hospitals are entirely exempt from any numerical cap: 'nothing in this article shall prohibit a hospital from employing physician assistants' under a hospital-designated supervising physician.
NYS Dept. of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) facilities: Up to 8 at a time
Same Dec. 2024/Feb. 2025 amendment raised the DOCCS-specific cap from 1:6 to 1:8.
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
PAs may obtain their own individual DEA registration as 'mid-level practitioners.'
Written agreement
Required
Unconditional — 'supervision' under Educ. Law Article 131-B is the physician's ongoing legal responsibility for the PA, not a filed practice-agreement document comparable to the NP model. No PA-specific written-agreement form analogous to the NP's was found.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — New York has one of the strictest corporate-practice-of-medicine regimes in the country. A medical-services PLLC's members must ALL be licensed under Educ. Law Article 131 (Medicine) — N.Y. LLC Law §1203, confirmed directly against statute text; the parallel professional-service-corporation framework (Bus. Corp. Law §1503, who may organize; §1507, share issuance restricted to licensed practitioners of the authorized profession; §1506, corporation restricted to the services it was incorporated for — all three read directly and confirmed non-conflicting) works the same way. PAs are licensed under the separate Article 131-B, so — by the same logic confirmed for RNs (Article 139) below — a PA cannot be a member/owner of a medical-services PLLC/PC; PAs practice as employees of a physician-owned entity, not owners.
Legal sources for these rules (6)
- N.Y. Educ. Law §§ 6541, 6542 (Article 131-B)
- A.8378-A/S.9038-A (2024) — raised PA supervision ratios, eff. 2/22/2025
- NYSED Office of the Professions — Article 131-B summary
- health.ny.gov — Physician Assistant reference
- S7981/A7988 (2025-26 session) — pending 6,000-hour PA independence pathway, not enacted
- 10 NYCRR § 94.2 — Supervision and scope of duties (referenced, not independently fetched — see module docstring)
About New York's rules
New York combines an unusually strict general corporate-practice-of-medicine regime (physician/same-profession-only PC/PLLC ownership) with two notable exceptions: pharmacy ownership is NOT restricted to pharmacists (Educ. Law §6808), and midwifery (CNM) is its own fully independent practice act (Art. 140), unlike the physician-collaboration model governing NP/PMHNP. CRNA has no dedicated practice statute at all — governed only by DOH facility regulation. NP/PMHNP independence (≥3,600 hours) is a repeatedly-extended sunset provision (currently through July 1, 2030), not permanent law.
Other clinicians in New York: see the state overview.