PA · Florida
Collaborative Practice Agreement for Physician Assistants in Florida
Yes, a written physician agreement is required. Florida calls it a Written Protocol.
Florida has never created an independent-practice pathway for PAs; the most recent attempt (S.B. 668, 2026) died in Senate Health Policy Committee March 13, 2026. Unlike NP/CNM, there is no experience-based or scope-limited route to autonomy at any tenure.
What the collaboration must look like
The rules the physician relationship has to follow. Each fact comes from the statute or board rule listed under sources.
Proximity
Available remotely (no on-site requirement)
§458.347/§459.022 define supervision as requiring the physician's 'easy availability or physical presence... for consultation and direction,' and expressly include the ability to communicate by telecommunication within 'easy availability' — no mileage/radius standard is codified.
Supervision ratio
Up to 10 at a time
'A physician may not supervise more than 10 currently licensed physician assistants at any one time' (§458.347/§459.022) — raised from 4 to 10 by H.B. 431 (2021), effective July 1, 2021. PA-specific; no statutory cap governs how many APRNs the same physician may separately supervise.
Chart review
0% of charts · As needed
Coded as 0%/as-needed to distinguish an affirmative statutory exemption from silence: §458.347/§459.022 state the supervising physician 'may not be required to review and cosign charts or medical records prepared by' the PA. All delegated tasks/procedures must still be documented in the medical record (Fla. Admin. Code R. 64B8-30.012), but no review percentage or cosignature mandate exists.
Meeting cadence
Not codified — left to the agreement
Prescriptive authority
Covered by the practice agreement · controlled substances permitted
PAs with prescriptive privileges must complete 10 CME hours per renewal, 3 of which must specifically address safe/effective controlled-substance prescribing. A 2026 bill (H.B. 683) that would have raised the pediatric psychiatric limit to 30 days and removed DOH delegation-notification requirements passed the House 112-4 but died in Senate Rules March 13, 2026 — not current law.
Written agreement
Required
Unconditional — PA practice is a physician-delegation model under §458.347 (MD) / §459.022 (DO), not a filed 'collaborative practice agreement' the way some states use the term; the delegation relationship is mandatory for the life of the PA's practice.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Non-licensee ownership permitted — Florida has no judicially-recognized corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine (secondary-source consensus across multiple health-law firms — no single statute states this affirmatively). The operative constraints are fee-splitting prohibitions (§458.331(1)(i)/§459.015(1)(j)) and the Health Care Clinic Act (Fla. Stat. Ch. 400, Part X): §400.9905(4)(g) exempts entities wholly owned by licensed health care practitioners under Ch. 457-491 (PA licensure lives within Ch. 458/459 itself) from clinic-licensure/medical-director mandates, provided the owner-practitioner supervises within their own scope — a materially more permissive framework than Texas's physician-majority-ownership mandate.
PA clinical services still require physician delegation regardless of entity ownership, so payer/credentialing practicalities often keep a physician involved in the entity even though Florida law itself doesn't mandate it.
Legal sources for these rules (8)
- Fla. Stat. § 458.347 — Physician assistants (MD supervision)
- Fla. Stat. § 459.022 — Physician assistants (DO supervision)
- Fla. Stat. § 458.331(1)(i) / § 459.015(1)(j) — Fee-splitting prohibitions
- Fla. Stat. § 456.44 — Controlled substance prescribing standards (acute pain)
- Fla. Stat. § 400.9905 — Health Care Clinic Act definitions/exemptions
- Fla. Admin. Code R. 64B8-30.012 — Physician Assistant Performancesecondary
- S.B. 668 (2026) — PA independent practice, died in committee March 13, 2026
- H.B. 683 (2026) — PA prescribing changes, passed House, died in Senate Rules
What a collaborating physician costs here
Typical monthly cost in Florida
$550 – $850
Estimate for one Physician Assistant. This state's rules add a restrictive-tier premium.
About Florida's rules
Florida's 2020 autonomous-practice law (§464.0123, ≥3,000 supervised hours + coursework) creates a real independence pathway for NP and CNM — but excludes PMHNP, CRNA, and CNS entirely; CRNA autonomy bills have died three sessions running (2024-2026). Florida has no corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine (secondary-source consensus) — entity ownership instead turns on the Health Care Clinic Act's §400.9905 exemption mechanics. Supervision ratio/chart-review/meeting-cadence are largely uncodified; PA's 10-supervisee cap is the exception.
Other clinicians in Florida: see the state overview.