Proposed Revisions to Missouri Collaborative Practice Agreements with Nurse Practitioners
On February 23, 2024, the Missouri State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts and Missouri State Board of Nursing announced proposed revisions to the collaborative practice rules between physicians and nurse practitioners. The proposed rule will be officially published in the Missouri Register on March 1, 2024, with public comments accepted until April 1, 2024.
As the regulations now stand, the general rule is that nurse practitioners may only perform delegated medical acts when the supervising physician is located within 75 miles by road of the nurse practitioner. However, the new, proposed rule would eliminate this requirement. With the removal of the 75-mile regulatory requirement, the only requirements regarding geographic proximity are contained in the licensing statutes, which provide that a nurse practitioner and physician must “maintain geographic proximity.”
This represents a significant loosening of the Missouri requirements for collaborative practice relationship between nurse practitioners and their collaborating physicians. If you have any questions about how this might affect your collaborative practice relationships, please do not hesitate to reach out to Richard Hill, Michael Barth, or any of the other members of Lashly & Baer’s Health Care Advisory Team.