Precept NP students on the hours you choose.
NPhours pays nurse practitioners and master's-prepared nurses to precept students part-time, in clinic or by telehealth. You set your rate, you pick the student, one coordinator handles the school's paperwork, and each 120-hour block pays in two deposits.
Est. 2019 · 900+ preceptors · 60+ programs · No cost to preceptors
Move the rate and the block moves with it: $1,440 at $12, $2,400 at $20. Paid by direct deposit.
A preceptor network, built from the preceptor's side.
Programs have more students than sites. NPhours keeps a roster of clinicians who will take one, verifies each of them once, holds the agreements with 60+ programs, and pays per block. You give the hours and the teaching. Everything else is a coordinator's job.
The clinician
Two years past certification, a license in good standing, a clinic or a video practice, and eight or nine hours a week you could give a student for a term. Or half that.
One at a time
A graduate nursing student who needs 120 hours in your population this term. You see their program, dates, hours and interests before you see their name.
The coordinator
Matching, the affiliation agreement, the onboarding packet, the log, the evaluation reminders, and the two deposits. Named, reachable, on the rotation from card to final.
Set a rate. The block does the rest.
Twelve to twenty dollars an hour of student time, your choice. A block is 120 hours; a half-block is 60. The first half lands when you sign the midpoint evaluation, the second when you sign the final.
| Your rate | Half-block · 60 h | Block · 120 h | Three blocks a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| $12 an hour | $720 | $1,440 | $4,320 |
| $15 an hour | $900 | $1,800 | $5,400 |
| $18 an hour | $1,080 | $2,160 | $6,480 |
| $20 an hour | $1,200 | $2,400 | $7,200 |
Four rules decide eligibility.
Programs check them in this order. If all four hold, you will be approved; if one fails, a coordinator will tell you which and whether time fixes it. RNs with an MSN and a teaching or management role qualify for education and leadership practica under a different set of rules.
License
Current, with nothing attached to it, in the state your patients are in. A restriction, probation or pending action disqualifies until it clears.
Certification that matches
National board certification in the population the student is training for. An FNP for FNP students, a psychiatric provider for PMHNP students.
Two years in practice
Counted from your certification date, in that population. Most programs write this figure into their handbook and some write three.
A setting the course accepts
Primary care hours in a primary care setting. The clinic, not only the clinician, has to fit the course objectives.
In clinic, by video, or the mix most rotations become.
In clinic: shadow, then see, then present
Your rooms, your patients, your EMR. The student's hours are the hours they are with you seeing patients in the course's population.
What a rotation looks like
By telehealth: follow-ups and psychiatry convert best
A student joins your video visits with the patient's consent, runs the intake or the follow-up, and presents to you between calls. The program sets the share it will count.
How teleprecepting works
Mixed: where most rotations end up
In-person days for new patients and exams, video for medication checks and results. The card states the split the program allows and you accept it or not.
What a mixed opening looks like
What changes in your clinic, said before you apply.
Six things preceptors tell us they wished they had been told first. Now they are told first.
- Note 01
Your first two weeks are slower
One fewer patient an hour is the usual cost while a student learns your rooms, your EMR and your habits. It comes back by week three if you let the student take the history.
- Note 02
Programs rule on video, not preceptors
You may run a fine telehealth practice and still be told a course requires in-person hours. The permitted mode is on every card before you accept.
- Note 03
Pay follows the log, not the calendar
If a student completes 96 of 120 hours, you are paid for 96. Hours you supervised that the student did not log are the student's problem to fix, and coordinators help them fix it.
- Note 04
Rotations cluster at three starts
January, May and August. A quiet October is normal. Nobody promises you a student in a given month; ask your coordinator how the previous term went for profiles like yours.
- Note 05
It is 1099 income
No withholding. Setting roughly a third aside is common practice; your preparer can say whether a quarterly estimate is due. A state tax credit may or may not stack with a paid rotation.
- Note 06
You can say no
Any card, any time, for any reason, with nothing recorded against you. Withdrawing after a start date is the one thing coordinators will try to talk you out of, because it strands a student.
Eleven tracks, one page each.
What students in each track need from a preceptor, how much of it a program will count by video, and what the block pays in that population.
Six steps, about three weeks.
Most of the three weeks is the program's approval clock. Your part is under an hour.
Apply
Ten minutes: credential, specialty, state, hours, mode.
Verify
CV, license, certification, a paragraph on your practice. Checked once, used across programs.
Agree
The affiliation agreement, in the school's template, signed by your practice.
Orient
Ninety minutes on the log, the evaluations and two teaching methods.
Match
A card: program, dates, hours, population, mode. Accept or decline inside 72 hours.
Precept and get paid
Two direct deposits: one on the midpoint evaluation, one on the final.
Coordinators who have precepted.
Tamsin R.
Reads every application and every midpoint evaluation. Has precepted FNP students in a rural family practice since 2014 and still takes one a term. Writes the teaching-method pieces in Off the Clock.
Kwame A.
Precepts PMHNP students entirely by video from a telepsychiatry practice. Rules on which visit types a program will count remotely, and writes the teleprecepting guidance.
Ravenna S.
Holds the relationship with every program's clinical placement office. Drafts affiliation agreements in the school's own template and knows which log system each program uses.
Shift notes from the roster.
My first card was an FNP student for the spring term at exactly the hours I had listed: Tuesdays and Thursday mornings. The clinic day slowed for two weeks and then she was writing half my notes. Two deposits, on the two dates the schedule said.
I precept entirely by video. The program's agreement said 100 percent of med-management follow-ups could count for their PMHNP students, and the coordinator had that confirmed in writing before I ever saw the student's name.
The affiliation agreement with my health system took eleven days and I did not touch it. Program relations sent our legal office the school's own template with the fields already completed.
Off the Clock: the pieces preceptors actually search for.
Pay figures, tax credits, recertification credit, teaching methods, and what to do when a student is behind. Bylined by the coordinator who knows the subject.
Bexley O.
Building a teaching CV
One line reads: Clinical preceptor, 3 students, 360 hours. Here is how to record precepting so it counts on a CV, in a renewal, and with a committee.
2026-08-26Kwame A.
Precepting across state lines
The student's home address on the placement form is the first thing to read. Three locations decide whether a cross-state video rotation can happen.
2026-08-25Dagny H.
1099 income from precepting
What box 1 of a 1099-NEC means, the $600 threshold, self-employment tax, why preceptors set aside a third, and when quarterly estimates are required.
Asked before opening hours.
Who can precept through NPhours?
Nurse practitioners, certified nurse-midwives, CRNAs and clinical nurse specialists with an active, unencumbered license, national certification in the population they would teach, and two years of practice since certification. Registered nurses with an MSN or higher and a current teaching or management role can precept MSN education and leadership practica. Physicians and PAs are accepted where a program's handbook allows them.
What does a block pay, and when?
You choose a rate from $12 up to $20 for every hour of student time. A standard block of 120 hours therefore pays $1,440 to $2,400. Half is deposited when you sign the midpoint evaluation and half when you sign the final. Pay follows the hours the program's log shows, so a rotation that ends early pays for the hours completed.
Can the whole rotation be by telehealth?
Sometimes. The program decides what share of a student's hours may be completed by video, and it writes that share into the affiliation agreement. Psychiatric and primary care follow-up visits are the ones most often permitted. Acute care and procedural rotations rarely qualify. Your card shows the permitted mode before you accept, so a video-only preceptor never sees an in-person rotation.
How much of my clinic day does a student take?
Expect one fewer patient an hour during the first fortnight, while the student learns your flow and your EMR. After that most preceptors recover the time as the student takes the history and drafts the note. The orientation covers two teaching methods, the one-minute preceptor and SNAPPS, built for exactly this problem.
Who handles the paperwork with the school?
Program relations at NPhours. The affiliation agreement is drafted in the school's own template or an existing one is confirmed, your license and certification are verified once and re-used across programs, and the student's onboarding packet is collected before day one. You sign the agreement if you own the practice; otherwise your administrator does, and a coordinator walks them through it.
Is there any cost to me?
No. NPhours is paid by the programs and students it places, not by preceptors. There is no fee to apply, to be on the roster, to decline a card, or to leave. The only money that moves toward you is the two halves of each block, reported on a 1099-NEC each January if the year's total reaches $600.
Open your hours.
Ten minutes. A coordinator replies within one business day with what is open in your state and population, or with the one thing that needs fixing first.
Received. Your coordinator will be in touch within one business day with what is open for your credential, state and hours.