An APRN who has practiced in collaboration with a physician for at least 3 years and at least 2,000 hours may thereafter practice alone, with prescriptive authority, after notifying the Department of Public Health in writing.
Connecticut’s transition ends with a letter, not a license: after at least three years and 2,000 hours in collaboration with a licensed physician, an APRN files written notice with the Department of Public Health and thereafter practices alone, prescribing included. No new credential is issued and no board adjudicates the change.
The transition
3 years and 2,000 hours in collaboration with a licensed physician
The moment it ends
Written notice to the Department of Public Health of intent to practice without a collaborative agreement, submitted after completing the 3-year/2,000-hour period and before practicing independently
The timeline
P.A. 14-12 (2014; provisions effective July 1, 2014)
Since P.A. 14-12 (2014), Connecticut independence is triggered by a letter, not a license: after 3 years and 2,000 collaborative hours, the APRN simply files written notice with DPH — no new credential is issued.
Conn. Gen. Stat. §20-87a(b)
Scope and carve-outs
The grant and the strings, at equal weight
Full scope once independent — the APRN may practice alone or collaborate voluntarily with any licensed provider, including prescribing. During the transition period the written collaborative agreement must specifically address the level of Schedule II and III controlled substances the APRN may prescribe.
The watch
Pending in Connecticut
Statutes move, boards write rules, sunsets arrive. This watch is checked against primary sources on a standing cadence — last verified 11 August 2026 — and every item links the source it was read from.
Nothing pending in Connecticut that we can pin to a primary source. What has already taken effect is below.
Landed recently (1)
Recently effective
Connecticut joined the Nurse Licensure Compact for RNs and LPNs only; APRN licensure stays single-state.
Superbills for the patient who wants to claim out-of-network benefits.
The Fee Schedule — the one Gale document that states the fee.
Your practice page, in the public directory compiled from the NPPES registry.
Your credentials in one place — every license, DEA registration, board certification and plan enrollment you already hold, with reminders at 90, 60 and 30 days before one expires. Gale checks your NPI against the national registry and marks what it checked. It does not file applications; a credentialing service can.
Referrals from colleagues through your own link, acknowledged and booked in one place, and a view of which referral sources send you patients and which have gone quiet.
Practice notes on your public page, and your own notes on Gale’s health articles in the content library — credited to you, and nothing is public until you publish it.
An activity and access log that records who opened, changed or exported a patient’s chart, and when.
Connect Claude to set up your services, rates and hours by talking to it. It cannot open a patient record, move money or sign anything.
Opening with the founding cohort
Concierge memberships — a monthly plan your practice sells on its own terms. Not sellable yet: enrollment fails closed behind a legal switch until counsel clears it. No countdown — when it clears, it clears.
The loop tracker — every referral, lab, and question a visible loop with an owner, a state, and a promised window. Closing one requires an outcome note; nothing silently expires.
The guided founding sequence — practice setup walked step by step with the first cohort: entity, posted prices, the practice page, the first visit.
Currents — the regulatory watch for your state and the latest evidence for your specialty, dated, sourced, and re-verified on a standing cadence. Quiet weeks say so.
Built, on sample data for now
Insurance billing — a billing console, coding you review and attest, and every claim followed from draft to paid. Today a claim is checked by Gale’s own test system: nothing reaches a payer and no money moves.
Outreach — check-ins for patients who have drifted, drafted overnight for you to approve. Approving sends nothing yet; patient contact stays off until it opens.
Your panel, sorted so the patients who are due or slipping out of care come first — a sort order, not a prediction — with show rates and between-visit activity counted beside it.
Practice health — whether notes get signed and Good Faith Estimates go out on time.
Guidance monitoring — the between-visit guidance a patient chooses to share with you, with anything off track listed first. It fills as patients share.
Workbooks — your charts, claims, referral pipeline, compliance records and clinician roster as tables you can edit. New accounts start on a sample practice.
A desktop bridge and scheduled agents, for work that runs while you are away. A scheduled agent can never send a message, move money or sign anything.
The economics
During the transition, someone signs — and the signature is a cost line, in money or in kind. Independence retires it. What Gale adds is built to stay just as legible.
Gale’s side of the ledger is deliberately short. The software is free, and Gale earns one flat all-in fee on a transaction — charged only when your practice is actually paid, never as a subscription, never with per-feature line items, never a spread on your rate. The number itself lives in exactly one document, on purpose, so it can never quietly say two different things in two places: the Fee Schedule states it.
The playbook
The deepest state cluster we have built is California’s — eight guides on the 103/104 ladder, cited to the statute and the board’s own filings. They are California’s rules, not Connecticut’s; the same treatment is coming state by state. Until then, they show the depth of homework to expect from us.
The written agreement must specifically address the level of Schedule II and III controlled substances you may prescribe during the collaborative period. After the 3-year/2,000-hour threshold and your written notice to DPH, the agreement falls away entirely.
No. The mechanism is a written notice of intent to the Department of Public Health, filed after the threshold is met and before you practice without the agreement. Independence attaches by operation of the statute — collaboration afterward is voluntary.
Where to start
Your page may already exist
Gale publishes a public directory compiled from the NPPES registry. Find your listing, claim it, and see how you rank for your own name — that page is the front door your independent practice will be found through.