PA · Utah
Collaborative Drug Therapy Management for Physician Assistants in Utah
Yes, a written agreement with a physician is required before you prescribe and adjust drug therapy. Utah calls it a Delegation of Services Agreement.
Three experience tiers (§ 58-70a-307): <4,000 hrs — practice under written practice-level collaboration policies (no individual agreement); 4,000-10,000 hrs — written collaborative agreement with a physician or a 10,000+ hr PA in the same specialty; ≥10,000 hrs — no agreement required at all.
Independent practice requires: ≥10,000 hours of post-graduate clinical experience (below this, see the note under Written agreement for the two lower tiers).
What the physician relationship 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)
No on-site or mile or minute standard is codified. Secondary guidance (2026) describes a requirement for 'a method of immediate consultation by electronic means' when the PA is not under the collaborating physician's direct on-site presence; confirm that detail against the statute or rule text.
Supervision ratio
Not codified — no cap on file
Chart review
Not codified — left to the agreement
Meeting cadence
Not codified — left to the agreement
Prescriptive authority
Separate prescribing terms required · controlled substances permitted
Once a PA reaches the 10,000-hour independent tier, prescribing is no longer agreement-gated in the same way — this entry describes the collaborative-tier baseline.
Written agreement
Required
Only the middle tier (4,000-10,000 hrs) requires an individually-executed written collaborative agreement. Below 4,000 hrs, collaboration instead runs off written practice-level policies rather than a per-PA agreement; above 10,000 hrs, no agreement of either kind is required. `agreementRequired: true` reflects the middle tier as the representative default.
Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)
Licensee-only ownership required — Professional Corporation (Utah Code Title 16, Ch. 11) or Professional LLC (§ 48-3a-1106) — Utah does not enforce a strict corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine by case law, but its Professional Corporation Act requires all owners of a PC/PLLC organized to provide PA services to hold a license in that same profession (single-profession PC rule); non-licensees may not hold equity in that entity.
Whether a PA may independently own a single-profession PC/PLLC (rather than co-owning with a physician) was not conclusively confirmed — Utah's Professional Corporation Act doesn't clearly enumerate PAs as ineligible, but no PA-specific ownership ruling was found either. Flag as unconfirmed.
Sources for the supervision rules (4)
- Utah Code § 58-70a-307 — Collaboration Requirements
- Utah Code § 58-70a-501 — Scope of Practice
- Utah Code Title 16, Chapter 11 — Professional Corporation Act
- Collaborating Physician — Utah Collaborating Physician Requirements & Compliance Rules (2026 Guide) [secondary source, used only for the proximity/electronic-consultation detail]secondary
What a collaborating physician costs here
Typical monthly cost in Utah
$500 – $600
Estimate for one Physician Assistant. Standard-tier state.
About Utah's rules
S.B. 36 (2023) eliminated the physician-collaboration/contract requirement for ALL APRN roles (NP, CRNA, CNM, CNS), not just NPs — Utah is a full-independence state across the APRN scope. PAs remain on a separate, hours-tiered collaboration model (Utah Code § 58-70a-307) with no numeric ratio cap or chart-review percentage codified.
Other clinicians in Utah: see the state overview.