Physician duties · PA · South Dakota
Signing for a Physician Assistant in South Dakota: what the physician takes on
The agreement is mandatory for the clinician, which makes its duties mandatory for you. South Dakota calls the instrument a Written Practice Agreement.
Pathway created by SL 2025, ch 149 (eff. 2025), which also repealed SD's old PA-per-physician ratio cap entirely (36-4A-29 series). Even a PA who has NOT yet met this threshold practices under 'collaboration,' not supervision — no physical-presence or ratio requirement applies either way (see below).
Independent practice requires: certified by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA); ≥6,000 practice hours as a PA; affidavit filed with the SD Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners attesting to the above (SDCL 36-4A-1.2).
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
SDCL 36-4A-26.1: 'Collaboration does not require the physical presence of the appropriate health care provider at the time or place the physician assistant provides services.' The degree of collaboration is set by the employing facility/practice's own policies, not a statutory radius or on-site rule — applies regardless of whether the PA has met the 6,000-hour threshold.
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
Individual DEA registration is the typical practical prerequisite for controlled-substance prescribing but was not separately confirmed in this section's text — verify with the Board before relying on this for Schedule II specifically.
Written agreement
Required
Only a PA who has NOT filed the 6,000-hour affidavit needs a written 'collaborative agreement' with a physician (SDCL 36-4A-1.1) — once filed, no agreement of any kind is required (36-4A-1.2). Unlike most states, even the pre-threshold agreement does not impose supervision-style day-to-day constraints; see proximity below.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — SD professional-corporation statute for the healing arts was not directly confirmed in this research pass — treated as probably requiring physician ownership, consistent with the common multi-state pattern, but not verified against SD's own corporations code. Flagged as an open item.
Verify SD's specific professional-corporation/CPOM statute before relying on this for an ownership structure decision.
Legal sources for these rules (3)
What physicians charge for this role
Typical monthly compensation in South Dakota
$500 – $600
Estimate for one Physician Assistant. Standard-tier state.
About South Dakota's rules
SD is unusually permissive: NP/CNM need only 1,040 practice hours (or a collaborative agreement with ANY physician OR already-independent NP/CNM) to become fully independent (SDCL 36-9A), and a 2025 reform (SL 2025, ch 149) gives PAs the same kind of pathway after 6,000 hours plus NCCPA certification. Older sources citing a fixed PA-per-physician ratio are now outdated — that cap was repealed.
Other clinicians in South Dakota: see the state overview.