Must a PMHNP's Collaborator Be a Psychiatrist, or Any Physician?

Does a PMHNP's collaborating physician have to be a psychiatrist?

No state rule read for this page says psychiatrist and only psychiatrist. Three shapes exist. Some states require no collaborating physician at all once a nurse practitioner holds full practice authority. Some write a specialty test into the statute or the board rules. Some require a written agreement and say nothing about the physician's specialty. Which shape governs you is a question about your license state, and only your board answers it.

The trade classification sorts states into three buckets and stops there. The American Association of Nurse Practitioners defines reduced practice as state law requiring a career-long regulated collaborative agreement with another health provider, and restricted practice as state law requiring career-long supervision, delegation or team management by another health provider 1Ref 1American Association of Nurse Practitioners (2026).State Practice Environment.AANP's own definitions of reduced practice (a career-long regulated collaborative agreement) and restricted practice (career-long supervision, delegation or team management), used only to name the categories and never as the source for any individual state's rule.. Neither definition says a word about the collaborator's specialty.

That detail lives one level down, in the statute or the board rule that governs the agreement itself, and it is where the psychiatrist question is settled or left open.

Four states are worked through below because each was read one document at a time. There is no count here of how many states require a specialty match and how many are silent, because no source in this set tabulates it, and a national number invented from four readings would be worse than none.

Ohio and Georgia write a specialty test into the rule

Ohio and Georgia both make specialty a condition of the agreement, and neither one reduces it to psychiatry. Ohio's general rule is that the collaborating physician or podiatrist must be practicing in a specialty that is the same as or similar to the nurse's nursing specialty 2Ref 2Ohio General Assembly (2026).Section 4723.431 | Standard care arrangements..Ohio's requirement that the collaborating physician or podiatrist practise in a specialty the same as or similar to the nurse's, the named list of acceptable collaborator specialties for a psychiatric-mental health nurse (psychiatry, pediatrics, or primary care or family practice), the podiatrist exclusion for those nurses, and the bar on collaborating at the same time with more than five nurses in the prescribing component.. Georgia's medical board runs a stricter mechanism: it forbids the agreement outright where the two fields are not comparable 3Ref 3Georgia Composite Medical Board (2026).Chapter 360-32 NURSE PROTOCOL AGREEMENTS PURSUANT TO O.C.G.A. SECTION 43-34-25.Georgia's bar on a nurse protocol agreement where the APRN's specialty area or field is not comparable to the physician's, the requirement that delegated medical acts fall within the comparable specialty area or field of the delegating physician, and the requirement that a designated substitute physician have the same scope of practice as the delegating physician.. Same subject, two different levers.

Ohio does not leave same or similar to interpretation for psychiatric-mental health nurses. Ohio calls the document a standard care arrangement, and for a nurse certified as a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner or clinical nurse specialist the statute names the acceptable collaborator specialties directly: psychiatry, pediatrics, or primary care or family practice 2Ref 2Ohio General Assembly (2026).Section 4723.431 | Standard care arrangements..Ohio's requirement that the collaborating physician or podiatrist practise in a specialty the same as or similar to the nurse's, the named list of acceptable collaborator specialties for a psychiatric-mental health nurse (psychiatry, pediatrics, or primary care or family practice), the podiatrist exclusion for those nurses, and the bar on collaborating at the same time with more than five nurses in the prescribing component.. A family physician is on that list by name. Podiatrists, who may collaborate with other nurses under the same section, are excluded for these nurses. The text quoted here is the version effective April 9, 2025.

Availability is capped separately from specialty. Ohio bars a physician from collaborating at the same time with more than five nurses in the prescribing component 2Ref 2Ohio General Assembly (2026).Section 4723.431 | Standard care arrangements..Ohio's requirement that the collaborating physician or podiatrist practise in a specialty the same as or similar to the nurse's, the named list of acceptable collaborator specialties for a psychiatric-mental health nurse (psychiatry, pediatrics, or primary care or family practice), the podiatrist exclusion for those nurses, and the bar on collaborating at the same time with more than five nurses in the prescribing component., which is what bites when the one psychiatrist in your county is already covering four other prescribers.

Georgia layers the constraint three ways. No physician may enter a nurse protocol agreement with an APRN whose specialty area or field is not comparable to the physician's own. The delegated medical acts must fall within the comparable specialty area or field of the delegating physician. And the designated physician named to cover an absence must have the same scope of practice as the delegating physician 3Ref 3Georgia Composite Medical Board (2026).Chapter 360-32 NURSE PROTOCOL AGREEMENTS PURSUANT TO O.C.G.A. SECTION 43-34-25.Georgia's bar on a nurse protocol agreement where the APRN's specialty area or field is not comparable to the physician's, the requirement that delegated medical acts fall within the comparable specialty area or field of the delegating physician, and the requirement that a designated substitute physician have the same scope of practice as the delegating physician., so a substitute cannot be picked purely for who answers the phone.

But comparable is not reduced to a roster of specialties the way Ohio's list is, so the Georgia answer has to be argued from the agreement in front of the board rather than read off the page.

New York asks a question instead of naming a specialty

New York's statute sets a qualification test and names no specialty. Education Law section 6902 requires the nurse practitioner to practice in collaboration with a licensed physician qualified to collaborate in the specialty involved, under a written practice agreement and written practice protocols 4Ref 4New York State Legislature (2026).New York Education Law § 6902, Definition of practice of nursing.New York's statutory wording that the nurse practitioner practises in collaboration with a licensed physician qualified to collaborate in the specialty involved, under a written practice agreement and written practice protocols, plus the existence of a later-effective version of the section.. That phrase is the whole of the specialty language. It points at what the individual physician is qualified to do rather than at a certification in psychiatry.

Read the version note on the statute page before you quote it. Section 6902 carries a later-effective version, so any date claim has to come from the current text itself, and a summary of the section cannot supply it.

The requirement also has an end in New York. The Education Department states that the written practice agreement requirement applies unless or until the nurse practitioner has completed more than 3,600 hours of qualifying nurse practitioner experience 5Ref 5New York State Education Department, Office of the Professions (2026).Practice Information for Nurse Practitioners.The New York State Education Department's plain-language statement that the written practice agreement requirement applies unless or until the nurse practitioner has completed more than 3,600 hours of qualifying nurse practitioner experience.. Past that threshold the collaborator question stops being a licensure question in the state, which changes what a solo practice is buying in the years before it gets there.

Pennsylvania's list names the CRNP's specialty and stops

Pennsylvania's rule on prescriptive authority collaborative agreements enumerates what the document must contain, and the collaborating physician's specialty is not among the required contents. What the rule does require is that the agreement identify the specialty in which the CRNP is certified 6Ref 6Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing (2026).49 Pa. Code § 21.285. Prescriptive authority collaborative agreements..The enumerated contents of a Pennsylvania prescriptive authority collaborative agreement: identifying the specialty in which the CRNP is certified, naming at least one substitute physician, stating a frequency of physician patient contact, filing with the Bureau, and review at least every two years, and the absence of any collaborating-physician specialty requirement from that list.. The obligation runs the other direction from the one the question assumes: your certification gets named, and the physician's does not.

The rest of the enumerated list is the part to calendar. The agreement must name at least one substitute physician, state a frequency of physician patient contact, be filed with the Bureau, and be reviewed at least every two years 6Ref 6Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing (2026).49 Pa. Code § 21.285. Prescriptive authority collaborative agreements..The enumerated contents of a Pennsylvania prescriptive authority collaborative agreement: identifying the specialty in which the CRNP is certified, naming at least one substitute physician, stating a frequency of physician patient contact, filing with the Bureau, and review at least every two years, and the absence of any collaborating-physician specialty requirement from that list.. A two-year review goes in the calendar the day the agreement is signed. The section was adopted in 2000 and last amended in 2009, and the code text used here is as published through 56 Pa.B. 3438.

One limit on that reading. A section that names no physician specialty is evidence about that section, not about every rule in the chapter, so confirm the surrounding regulations and any Board guidance before you treat silence as permission.

How to read your own state's rule in twenty minutes

Find the document your state names, then read its contents list. The name is the search term, and it differs everywhere: standard care arrangement in Ohio, nurse protocol agreement in Georgia, written practice agreement in New York, prescriptive authority collaborative agreement in Pennsylvania. Search your board's own site for that phrase, open the section that enumerates what the agreement must contain, and read it for three things.

• Whether the physician's specialty is named at all, and whether it arrives as a list of specialties or as a comparability test you would have to argue.
• Who may serve as the substitute, and whether the substitute carries the same specialty condition as the primary. Georgia's does. Pennsylvania requires at least one to be named without attaching a specialty condition to the physician at all.
• Which board holds the filing. It is not always the nursing board: in Georgia the APRN protocol agreement is registered with the Composite Medical Board, and the application is accessible and submittable online only by the delegating physician, through the board's Gateway account 7Ref 7Georgia Composite Medical Board (2026).APRN Protocol Registration.Georgia's filing mechanics for an APRN protocol agreement: the $150 filing cost, online submission by the delegating physician only through the board's Gateway account, and the board's stated current average processing time..

Filing carries its own clock and its own cost. Georgia's APRN protocol agreement costs $150 to file, and as of 2026-09-01 the board says it is currently experiencing processing times averaging 30 business days, depending on the complexity of the agreement 7Ref 7Georgia Composite Medical Board (2026).APRN Protocol Registration.Georgia's filing mechanics for an APRN protocol agreement: the $150 filing cost, online submission by the delegating physician only through the board's Gateway account, and the board's stated current average processing time.. Both numbers are the volatile kind. Re-read them off the board page before you plan a start date around them, and plan around the filing date rather than the signing date.

While the section is open, read what it says about prescribing after a collaborator quits. It is the same rulebook, it is quicker to read now than on the morning your collaborating physician quit, and when a new agreement replaces an old one the superseded copy belongs in your retention file.

What the specialty rule does not decide

The board's rule answers the board's question and nothing beyond it. It does not tell you what a malpractice carrier will accept, what a payer's credentialing file will require, or what the arrangement should cost. Each of those sits with a different organization, in a different document, and each has to be asked directly. A collaborator who satisfies the statute can still fail a credentialing requirement nobody checked.

Price is the part nobody publishes. No source here gives a rate for a psychiatrist collaborator or for a family physician collaborator, and there is no public benchmark to hold a quote against. What can be decided in advance is the structure: a flat fee versus percentage collaborator pay carries a different risk profile at the same annual total, and running the visit volume for collaborator fees against your own schedule shows what a quoted collaborator fee consumes before it is agreed to.

Two questions get collapsed into this one and should be kept apart. Whether a given physician may collaborate with you is a board question, settled in the statute or the board rules above. Whose number the claim goes out under is a billing question, and billing under a collaborator's NPI runs on a separate rulebook with separate consequences.

Ask the carrier and each payer's credentialing desk in writing, before the agreement is signed, and keep the answers filed with it.