Collaborating Physicians in Indiana: What APRNs Need

The Seven-Day Rhythm

This is the operational heart of an Indiana collaboration, and it's worth understanding before you choose a collaborator.

What's required: documentation of your prescribing practices submitted to your collaborating physician within seven days, including at least a 5% random sampling of the charts and medications you've prescribed.

Why the tempo matters more than the percentage. A 5% sample is genuinely light — lighter than Missouri's 10%, far lighter than Tennessee's 20%. But a seven-day turnaround means this is a weekly rhythm rather than a monthly task, and it's the kind of obligation that lapses quietly because each individual instance feels small.

What to establish before you sign. How the documentation gets to your physician, in what format, and what happens when either of you is away. An arrangement where this is left vague is an arrangement where it stops happening in month three and nobody notices until it's a year of gaps.

A physician who asks how you'll handle the seven-day submission is a physician who intends to do the work. One who waves it off is telling you something.

The Agreement Has to Disclose Your Other Agreements

Indiana includes a requirement most states don't: your collaborative practice agreement must contain a list of all other written practice agreements held by both you and the collaborating practitioner.

Both parties. All of them.

That's a transparency mechanism, and it has a practical consequence: you will see how many other APRNs your prospective physician is already collaborating with.

Indiana sets no numeric cap, so there's no threshold that disqualifies anyone. But a physician with a long list is a physician whose seven-day reviews are spread thin, and you're entitled to ask how that works in practice before you sign. Few states hand you that information as a matter of course.

What the Agreement Must Contain

Per the Board's requirements and its sample form:

• Complete names, home and business addresses, postcodes and telephone numbers for both parties
• Practice locations where prescriptive authority applies
• Specialty certifications of both the licensed practitioner and the APRN
• The specific manner of collaboration — how you'll work together, share information, maintain proximity, and cover absences
• Any limitations on your prescriptive authority
• How the physician reviews your prescribing practices, including the 5% sampling and seven-day submission
• A list of all other written practice agreements of both parties
• Duration — start date and termination conditions

Approval Checklist

1. Draft and sign the collaborative practice agreement, covering every required element including the 5% sampling and the seven-day submission.
2. List all other existing collaborative agreements held by both you and your collaborating practitioner.
3. Submit the signed agreement with the $50 application fee to the Indiana State Board of Nursing, before any prescribing begins. The fee is non-refundable.
4. Wait for prescriptive authority to be issued. Don't prescribe against a pending application.
5. Obtain your Indiana Controlled Substances Registration ($60) and your federal DEA registration if you'll prescribe controlled substances — plus a separate CSR for each physical location where controlled substances are stored.
6. Run the review cycle: 5% random sampling, documentation to your physician within seven days, documented.
7. Notify the Board in writing immediately of any change to the agreement or its termination.
8. Renew biennially — authority expires 31 October of the odd-numbered year following grant or renewal. Submit a current signed agreement and your continuing education documentation.

What a Collaborating Physician Costs in Indiana

Indiana is mid-range and predictable.

No cap on collaborations, no mileage rule, and the lightest chart review percentage of any state that mandates one. Supply isn't constrained and the physician's recurring burden is modest.

What Indiana costs you is the gate and the tempo. You can't prescribe until the Board issues authority, so there's a real interval between signing and earning. And the seven-day rhythm means you need a collaborator who is reliably responsive week to week, not one who surfaces quarterly.

So the thing to pay for here is responsiveness, not availability. A cheap collaborator who takes three weeks to acknowledge a submission is more expensive than the rate suggests, because the obligation is yours to evidence.

At MD-Match, pricing is tailored to your practice rather than flat-rated. The match fee is $50, one time, and rematching is free, always.

Mistakes I Actually See in Indiana Arrangements

Prescribing before authority is issued.

The agreement is submitted to the Board and authority is granted. A signed agreement isn't permission.

Letting the seven-day submission slide.

It's weekly in practice, each instance feels minor, and a year of gaps looks very different from one missed week.

Not agreeing the mechanics up front.

Format, delivery method, and cover during absences. Vague arrangements stop happening.

Skipping the Indiana CSR.

It's separate from the federal DEA, it's $60, and you need one to prescribe controlled substances in Indiana.

Forgetting the per-location registration.

A separate CSR is required for each physical location where controlled substances are stored.

Leaving the other-agreements list incomplete.

It's a required element and it covers both parties.

Missing the 31 October renewal.

It falls in odd-numbered years, which makes it easy to lose track of — you go two years between reminders, and nothing external prompts you.

Assuming renewal CE matches initial CE.

Initial is 15 hours with 4 in pharmacology; renewal is 30 with 8.

Every physician in the MD-Match network is background-checked, license-verified for Indiana, and capacity-checked before matching — and for Indiana we ask directly how they handle the seven-day review, because that's the obligation that decides whether an arrangement works. We build the submission rhythm into the agreement, track the odd-year October renewal, and flag the CE difference before it's a problem.

How MD-Match Works in Indiana

1. Complete the free intake form — credential, specialty, practice setting, timeline. First step takes about two minutes.
2. Get a personalized quote. I review every Indiana submission myself. Tell me your expected patient volume — it determines what a 5% weekly sample actually looks like for your physician.
3. Pay the one-time $50 match fee and get matched with an Indiana-licensed, specialty-aligned physician with genuine capacity and a workable review process.
4. We handle the compliance rails — the agreement with every required element, the Board submission, CSR and DEA sequencing, the seven-day review rhythm, and the biennial renewal. If a match stops working, rematching is free.