Physician duties · PMHNP · Colorado
Signing for a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner in Colorado: what the physician takes on
No agreement is required, so the terms are whatever you both negotiate. Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners practice independently in Colorado, so any agreement is voluntary.
Colorado's Nurse Practice Act does not administratively differentiate PMHNPs from general NPs — 'Mental Health' is simply one population focus an NP (or CNS) registers under (3 CCR 716-1.14) alongside e.g. Family, Adult-Gerontology, Pediatric. No PMHNP-specific supervision, ratio, or prescriptive-authority rule was found; see the `np` entry for the shared framework.
What you take on as the physician
The rules the physician relationship has to follow. Each fact comes from the statute or board rule listed under sources.
Proximity
No proximity requirement
Identical standard to `np` — no codified proximity/reachability rule; only the general safe-consultation-mechanism standard of § 12-255-111(5) applies.
Supervision ratio
Not codified — no cap on file
Chart review
Not codified — left to the agreement
Meeting cadence
Not codified — left to the agreement
Prescriptive authority
Covered by the practice agreement · controlled substances permitted
Same statutory pathway as `np` — no PMHNP-specific schedule restriction found. PMHNP prescribing in practice skews toward Schedule II stimulants and Schedule IV benzodiazepines more heavily than general primary-care NP practice — not a different legal limit, but a different real-world risk/complexity profile (reflected in `calculatorWeights` below, not in this rule itself).
Written agreement
Not required
Unconditional — identical to `np`: no supervising or collaborating physician relationship of any kind is required. The 750-hour prescribing mentorship (see `supervision.prescriptiveAuthority` below) is the same uniform APRN credentialing step, not a PMHNP-specific requirement.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Non-licensee ownership permitted — Same as the general `np` entry — PMHNP is an NP population focus, not a separately licensed role, so the same § 12-255-104/-111 analysis applies identically.
This ownership analysis does not extend to any service outside this provider's own APRN scope (e.g., delegated medical-aesthetic procedures — see Colorado Medical Board Rule 800, 3 CCR 713-30), which stays physician-controlled regardless of the APRN's own practice-entity ownership.
Legal sources for these rules (2)
What physicians charge for this role
Typical monthly compensation in Colorado
$500 – $600
Estimate for one Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Standard-tier state.
About Colorado's rules
Colorado is a full-practice-authority state for all five APRN roles (NP/PMHNP/CRNA/CNM/CNS) — no physician agreement is ever required to practice. APRNs instead face a 750-hour prescribing mentorship (not necessarily physician-led) before 'full' (vs. 'provisional') prescriptive authority — a credentialing gate, not a supervision relationship. PAs moved from physician 'supervision' to an hours-gated 'collaborative agreement' under SB23-083 (2023) — not 'HB23-1214,' which could not be located and appears to be a misattribution. Colorado licenses estheticians; it has not deregulated the profession.
Other clinicians in Colorado: see the state overview.