Practice Agreement · RN

Registered Nurse Practice Agreement in Oregon

Oregon 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 Oregon calls itNo instrument required
Governing boardOregon State Board of Nursing
Research date2026-09-03 · clauses 2026-09-03

RNs (general licensure, not an APRN) are not subject to physician supervision in Oregon. ORS 678.010 defines the 'practice of registered nursing' as assessing, planning, ordering, giving, delegating, teaching, and supervising care with no physician-direction language, in contrast to LPN practice, which the statute ties to a medical or nursing plan of care.

What a Registered Nurse practice agreement covers in Oregon

Governed by the Oregon State Board of 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 ORS Chapter 678. Oregon law does not require a 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. The agreement on file also carries 2 scope, 2 education, 2 registration clauses, generated in the document itself.

Statutes and rules cited

  1. OAR 855-019-0260regulation

    Oregon Board of Pharmacy rule governing Collaborative Drug Therapy Management (CDTM) protocols between a pharmacist and a practitioner.

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 have no independent prescriptive authority in Oregon; they administer medications under the order of a provider authorized by law to prescribe.

Written agreement

Not required

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

Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)

Non-licensee ownership permitted — General RN licensure does not require an ORS 58.375/58.376 professional corporation in the first place — RNs are not enumerated as eligible ORS 58.376 licensees, but also don't independently render the kind of licensed medical services those statutes govern. Non-clinical businesses an RN might own (home health agency, staffing agency) fall under general corporation/LLC law with no ownership restriction.

For medical-aesthetics (med-spa) businesses performing delegated medical procedures, RN ownership of the entity does not itself remove any physician-delegation requirement for the procedures — ownership and clinical-delegation authority are separate questions. The specific Oregon Medical Board delegation rule for such procedures was not researched in this pass.

Legal sources for these rules (1)

About Oregon's rules

Oregon has no physician-supervision requirement for NP/CNS/CRNA and replaced PA 'supervision' with a non-supervisory 'collaboration agreement' (ORS 677.495-677.525, recodified by H.B. 4010, eff. June 6, 2024). CNM and PMHNP are population foci under the single NP license (OAR 851-050-0005), not separate license categories. CRNA/CNS entity co-ownership with physicians is unconfirmed — ORS 58.376 names only physicians, PAs, and NPs.

Other clinicians in Oregon: see the state overview.