Colorado clinicals for Frontier Nursing University students

Colorado in short

Colorado is open to FNU's nurse-midwifery, FNP, WHNP and PMHNP students, and FNU lists the state as meeting educational requirements for all four licenses. January 19, 2018 marked Colorado's entry into the Nurse Licensure Compact, and the state has yet to enact the APRN Compact.

AANP rates Colorado full practice with one condition: prescriptive authority follows once an NP attests to 750 hours of experience inside a mentoring agreement, the mentor being either a physician or an APRN. Someone licensed as an NP recently could be partway through that count, and FNU, for its own part, wants preceptors to have one year in the advanced practice role, so raise experience early.

What Colorado's Board rules say about FNU

Colorado's program-approval provision, 3 CCR 716-1 Rule 1.2, reserves the term nursing education program for a basic course of study leading to initial RN or LPN licensure. No part of it makes an APRN or graduate program headquartered in some other state ask the Board for approval, or notify it, ahead of its students' arrival. Guidance on the Board's website beyond the rules is still to be checked, so confirm with your Clinical Advisor.

You may see a Colorado "student permit" mentioned. It applies only to students and graduates of out-of-state nontraditional programs with no faculty-supervised clinical component who need in-state clinical hours to be licensed. It isn't a general clinical-placement permit, and FNU clinicals run under RCF faculty oversight.

The Rural and Frontier Health Care Preceptor Tax Credit

Colorado gives a state income tax credit to uncompensated preceptors in rural and frontier shortage areas. Advanced practice nurses qualify, and since HB22-1005 so do registered nurses and other licensed professionals in outpatient settings. That law raised the cap to 300 preceptors a year and extended the credit to tax years starting before January 1, 2033.

The catch: HB22-1005 limited eligible students to those enrolled at an accredited Colorado college or university. FNU is based in Kentucky, so a preceptor taking an FNU student doesn't appear to qualify. Leave the credit out of your pitch and offer what FNU gives preceptors instead: an honorarium, a 6-hour CE course, DynaMed access and documented precepting hours. See preceptor outreach.

Front Range metros and the rest of the state

By 2025 Census estimates, the Denver-Aurora-Centennial metro has 3,092,037 people, Colorado Springs 781,796, Greeley 378,426 and Fort Collins-Loveland 377,292. Large systems include UCHealth, HCA HealthONE, CommonSpirit Health's Colorado hospitals, Intermountain Health (Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver) and Denver Health. They are where to begin asking, not sites known to accept FNU students.

FNU's own site notes that rotations can be hard to win in some regions. If a Denver search stalls, the rural and frontier areas the tax credit was written for are FNU's home ground, since its mission puts rural and underserved communities first. Rural clinicals covers that kind of search, and the Community Map shows Colorado preceptors FNU has worked with.

Licensing for Colorado clinicals

Colorado accepts a multistate license from any compact state for in-person clinicals. If yours is single-state and issued outside the compact, apply for Colorado licensure well before your site starts. For telehealth, meet licensing rules where each patient lives and stay within your track's cap. More on RN licenses for clinicals.

Why Colorado students choose us

A placement advisor looks for a preceptor suited to your track near you, on the Front Range or in a rural county, and gets your CSAF and credentialing details in order with you. If a preceptor backs out, a new search gets going right away. Every approval decision is FNU's, made by your RCF and Clinical Credentialing. Start with the request form.