Written Protocol · RN
Wisconsin Protocol for Registered Nurses
Recognized but not required in every case. The Protocol is the written instrument Wisconsin 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 physician-supervision or collaborative-agreement requirements in Wisconsin; RN practice under ch. 441 is defined without a physician-oversight condition, unaffected by the APRN Modernization Act.
What a voluntary Registered Nurse agreement covers in Wisconsin
Wisconsin requires no written agreement for registered nurses. These are the clauses a practice includes when it chooses to put one in writing. The Wisconsin Board of Nursing governs registered nurses here.
The Registered Nurse accepts a delegated act only where a protocol, meaning a precise and detailed written plan for a regimen of therapy, or a written or verbal order from the delegating provider exists.
Source: Wis. Admin. Code § N 6.03(2)
The Registered Nurse performs delegated acts under the general supervision or direction of the provider who delegated them and consults that provider where an act may harm a patient.
Source: Wis. Admin. Code § N 6.03(2)
- The Protocol also carries 1 scope and 1 education clauses, authored in the document itself.
Statutes and rules these clauses cite
- Wis. Admin. Code § N 6.03(2)regulation
RN performance of delegated acts: accept only delegated acts for which there are protocols or written or verbal orders; perform under the general supervision or direction of the delegating provider.
What Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin; they administer medications only as ordered by an authorized prescriber.
Written agreement
Not required
Unconditional — general RN licensure is never subject to physician supervision or a collaborative agreement, unlike the APRN/PA categories above.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Non-licensee ownership permitted — General RN licensure does not require a healing-arts Service Corporation under ch. 180, subch. XIX — non-clinical businesses an RN might own (staffing agency, home health agency) fall under general corporation/LLC law and carry no ownership restriction.
For medical-aesthetics (med-spa) businesses performing delegated medical procedures, RN ownership of the business entity does not remove the need for physician delegation and oversight of the procedures themselves.
Sources for the supervision rules (1)
About Wisconsin's rules
The APRN Modernization Act (2025 Act 17) took effect September 1, 2026 — days before this data's last-verified date — replacing permanent NP/CRNA/CNS collaborative arrangements with a 3,840-hour/24-month transition to independent practice; CNMs are auto-licensed with NO such threshold. Given how recent this is, verify current DSPS/Board of Nursing implementation guidance before relying on transition-period details below.
Other clinicians in Wisconsin: see the state overview.