How to become a preceptor

What a preceptor does

A preceptor is an experienced, licensed clinician who supervises a student’s clinical hours. The student learns inside your real practice, with your patients or on your telehealth visits, while you guide the work, review the hours they log and complete the school’s evaluations.

Precepting is how nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse-midwives, counselors, social workers and behavior analysts are trained. Every one of them needs supervised hours with someone already doing the job well, and the student’s program counts those hours toward graduation and toward eligibility for board certification. In counseling the role is usually called a site supervisor, in social work a field instructor and in behavior analysis a fieldwork supervisor, but the heart of it is the same.

What you need before you start

Each school writes its own preceptor guidelines, and almost every program asks for the same five things:

• An active, unencumbered license in the state where the student’s hours take place.
• National board certification in your specialty, where your profession certifies: an FNP for FNP students, a PMHNP for PMHNP students, and so on.
• Experience in your current role, usually one to two years after certification.
• A practice whose patients and setting match the student’s course: primary care for a primary care course, psychiatry for a psychiatric course.
• Time: the clinic days that suit you in person, or a few minutes a week to review hours when precepting virtually.

Who can precept a nurse practitioner student

Nurse practitioners are the most common preceptors for NP students, and they are not the only ones. The National Task Force standards that NP programs are accredited against ask schools to keep each preceptor’s degree, license and national certification on file, and they name nurse practitioners, physicians, physician assistants and clinical nurse specialists among the clinicians a program may use. Most programs place NP students with an NP in their own population focus for most of their hours, and with physicians or PAs for part of them.

The same standards ask programs to give every new preceptor a formal orientation, which can be written, verbal, virtual or face to face. Expect a short orientation packet from the school before your first student: the course objectives, the evaluation forms and how to reach the faculty.

How schools confirm your credentials

For nurses and nurse practitioners, schools look up your license in Nursys, the database state boards of nursing use for primary-source verification. They confirm your certification with the board that issued it, and they read your resume for two dates: when you were certified and when your current role began.

With Preceptorate, our team verifies your license with the state board before you meet a student, and again whenever your license number changes, so the school receives a complete, accurate preceptor file the first time.

The steps, from application to first sign-off

This is how it works with Preceptorate. Each step is short, and our team carries the paperwork between them.

1. 1ApplyTell us your specialty, the state you practice in and whether you would like to precept in person, virtually or both. It takes about a minute.
2. 2Hear from your recruitment managerThey reach out by text or email, answer your questions and send your link.
3. 3Create your accountA one-minute form: your facility, your RN license number and state, and the preceptor agreement.
4. 4License verifiedWe confirm your license with the state board.
5. 5Meet your studentA short call first, so you can both see it is a good fit. You decide after it.
6. 6Complete your profileEducation, license dates, your facility address and the documents the school asks for.
7. 7Agreement in placeWe prepare the affiliation agreement with your facility and complete the school’s forms.
8. 8Precept and get paidYou supervise and sign off the hours, and you are paid per block of hours at the rate you saw before you accepted.

In person, virtually, or both

In person, the student joins your practice on the days you choose and learns with your patients. Virtually, the student completes hours online where their school accepts virtual hours; with Preceptorate our team runs the mentorship sessions, and you review and sign off the hours.

Psychiatric-mental health, primary care follow-ups, counseling, DNP project work and MSN education and leadership practicums suit virtual precepting well. Acute care, neonatal, nurse-midwifery and PA students are matched in person, where their programs place their hours.

What to talk about on the first call

A good first call settles the details that make a rotation run smoothly:

• The student’s program, course and the dates of the rotation.
• How many hours the course asks for, and which days suit you both.
• How much of the rotation may be virtual, as the school sets it.
• When the school’s evaluations fall.
• Who signs the affiliation agreement for your site.

Making precepting part of your career

Many clinicians precept one student a term; others take several across a year. Precepting counts toward certification renewal with every major nurse practitioner board, keeps your own practice sharp, and shapes the next clinicians in your specialty. Through Preceptorate it is also paid, at a rate you set within our network’s range for your specialty.

Once you are in the network, students who fit your specialty and location are brought to you, and you choose the pace.

Questions