Written Protocol · RN
Maine Maine CDC Standing Order for Administration of 2025–2026 COVID-19 Vaccines By Qualified Health Care Professionals for Registered Nurses
Recognized but not required in every case. The Maine CDC Standing Order for Administration of 2025–2026 COVID-19 Vaccines By Qualified Health Care Professionals is the written instrument Maine law names for a Registered Nurse working with a physician. Below: the board that governs it, what it contains when one is used, and the supervision rules that apply either way.
RNs (general licensure, not an APRN) are not subject to a physician-supervision or collaborative-practice-agreement requirement in Maine. RNs practice under a physician's orders, standing orders, or delegation, consistent with the Maine Nurse Practice Act — categorically different from the APRN frameworks above.
What a voluntary Registered Nurse agreement covers in Maine
Maine requires no written agreement for registered nurses. These are the clauses a practice includes when it chooses to put one in writing. The Maine State Board of Nursing governs registered nurses here.
The Maine CDC standing order dated September 12, 2025 authorizes Registered Nurse, as a qualified health care professional with an active license, to administer the 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine under its procedure without a clinician examination or direct order at the time of the interaction.
When employed by a home health care provider or hospice program, Registered Nurse may administer board-approved noncontrolled prescription drugs under written protocols approved annually by the employer's professional advisory committee, which includes a physician.
Source: 32 M.R.S. § 13810
- The Maine CDC Standing Order for Administration of 2025–2026 COVID-19 Vaccines By Qualified Health Care Professionals also carries 1 scope clauses, authored in the document itself.
Statutes and rules these clauses cite
- 32 M.R.S. § 13810statute
Professional nurses and APRNs employed by home health care providers or hospice programs may possess and administer board-approved noncontrolled prescription drugs under written protocols approved annually by the employer's professional advisory committee, which includes a physician.
- Maine CDC Standing Order for Administration of 2025–2026 COVID-19 Vaccines by Qualified Health Care Professionals (Sept. 12, 2025)board guidance
Statewide standing order authorizing physicians, physician assistants, registered nurses, APRNs, licensed practical nurses, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to administer the 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine.
What Maine does require
The supervision and prescribing rules that apply to registered nurses regardless of any agreement.
Proximity
Not codified
Supervision ratio
Not codified — no cap on file
Chart review
Not codified
Meeting cadence
Not codified
Prescriptive authority
No agreement needed to prescribe · no controlled-substance authority
RNs do not have independent prescriptive authority in Maine; they administer medications pursuant to the orders of a licensed prescriber.
Written agreement
Not required
Unconditional — general RN licensure has never been subject to a physician collaboration/supervision agreement in Maine.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Non-licensee ownership permitted — General RN licensure; non-clinical businesses an RN might own fall outside the physician and APRN professional-entity questions
Sources for the supervision rules (1)
- 32 M.R.S. Title 32, Chapter 31 — Maine Nurse Practice Act
About Maine's rules
Maine's provider categories follow different independence models: NPs graduate to full practice after 24 months of registered (not written-agreement) supervision; PAs graduate after 4,000 documented clinical hours but still need a lighter 'practice agreement' afterward; CNMs/CNSs appear independent from initial licensure; and CRNAs remain physician/dentist-accountable except in critical-access/rural hospitals. Do not assume a single APRN framework applies uniformly.
Other clinicians in Maine: see the state overview.