From Susan’s Desk: Why You Need Full Practice Authority License & How to Apply

At ISAPN, we’re focused on advancing the profession and empowering advanced practice registered nurses’ careers. Passing legislation for full practice authority (FPA) in Illinois is one of our biggest achievements in recent years.

But I still hear APRNs say, “You know what, I’m not going to apply for full practice authority because my employer doesn’t recognize it so it doesn’t mean anything to me. It wouldn’t change my practice.”

Beyond that, people have reached out to me and said, “My employer said not to do it” or “I can’t do it.” I have walked them through that they really can.

I’ll share why upgrading to a full practice authority license is so important for your future and how to begin the process.

   
19 Pieces of Legislation or Agency Actions—and Counting!

To get us where we are today in this journey of trying to remove barriers to practice for APRNs, it has been 19 different pieces of legislation or agency actions. That’s a lot of work! That’s a lot of APRNs who have spent years and years and years advocating. So it’s disheartening to hear APRNs say, “It doesn’t mean anything to me. It won’t change my practice.”

When people say that to me, here’s what I say: Making the decision to not get full practice authority is assuming that you are going to be practicing in that same location for the rest of your career and that nothing is ever going to change in that institution. 

If all of us have learned anything over the last couple of years, it’s that nothing is guaranteed in life. You can decide that you can’t work there anymore. They could decide they don’t want you to work there anymore.

   
More Career Opportunities & Less Paperwork

The biggest risk an APRN takes is limiting themselves to certain types of roles when healthcare opportunities are changing every day. Plus, as more and more APRNs get full practice authority and employers see the decrease in the amount of regulatory paperwork it takes to have an APRN with an FPA license, you risk not getting the next job you’re interviewing for if that job wants you to have full practice authority.

Along with opening up more career opportunities, it also reduces the amount of paperwork. You can leave your position tomorrow, without having to send paperwork to the state of Illinois saying “this physician is no longer delegating prescriptive authority to me” because that’s the other piece.

Full practice authority comes with the ability to prescribe medications without delegation. So you don’t have to have that form, right? There’s no reason to submit that form. There’s no reason for an employer to have to submit that form and then track whether your collaborator changes or not. It's a huge burden, and that’s what I keep telling the employers as I’m talking to them.

   
Illinois Full Practice Authority License Requirements

So, what does it take to apply for a full practice authority license? When you graduate and become licensed for the first time in Illinois, you have to work with a written collaborative agreement for 4,000 practice hours and then get an additional 250 hours of CE and/or training in your area of expertise/specialty before you can apply for a full practice authority license.

   
How to Apply for Full Practice Authority in Illinois

Once you reach the milestone of 4,000 clinical hours of practice and that 250 hours of continuing education or training, now it’s time to begin the application process.

Download Application

Visit IDFPR’s website underneath the APRN applications for the Full Practice Authority (APRN -FPA) and CS Application (.pdf).

On the application it will ask for the controlled substance license (CSL). You just have to say “Pending” because you don’t have it yet. You will get a new CSL with your FPA license.

Physician Hours Signature

When you fill out the forms, you have to have a physician you’ve worked with or your employer attest that you have 4,000 hours. Now, if you have two physicians, have each of them sign the form and put the number of hours on it. Those forms do not have to be notarized.

As of January 2022, if the APRN is unable to get a signature be it because the physician refuses or because they can’t find the physician because they’ve left, the physician has passed, whatever reason, the department can then ask them for the documentation regarding hours and then they have the authority to grant an FPA license without that signature.

Notarized Application

What has to be notarized is the application packet. (Originally, when we passed the piece of legislation, APRNs AND physicians had to notarize, and it became a hot mess. We went right back to the department and they quickly amended the packet to say that only the APRN signature had to be notarized. Whew!)

Submitting Application

After you have the notarized application, you submit the application. The application fee is $125.

Then they submit their application. Some people have been saying it takes 4 to 6 weeks and some have gotten unlucky, and it’s taken longer.

After FPA

Once you have the FPA license, you have to make sure you submit a notice of prescriptive authority termination for the other license. That’s very important to do. It’s caused a lot of mix-ups.

Then they have to notify the DEA that they have a new controlled substance license. They do not need a new DEA license. They just need to tell them they have a new controlled substance license.

   

I hope this message helps everyone understand how important it is to take this next step, even if it doesn’t change your practice immediately. You’re getting the paperwork in place to take the next step in your career—who knows where it will take you?

Plus, you’re helping support the numbers and the data for us to continue to remove barriers to empower every APRN in their practice. And that’s always worthwhile.