CNS · Hawaii

Supervision Agreement for Clinical Nurse Specialists in Hawaii

No. Clinical Nurse Specialists practice independently here. Hawaii does not require one.

Practice authorityIndependent practice
Written agreementNo agreement required
What Hawaii calls itNo instrument required
Research date2026-09-03

Hawaii licenses CNSs as APRNs with the same independent-practice status as NP/CRNA/CNM (HRS § 457-8.5) — no collaborative-agreement requirement. CNS licensure requires either 600 practice hours over 2 years or 1,500 hours over 5 years, or recent graduation from a specialty program.

What the supervision must look like

The rules the physician relationship has to follow. Each fact comes from the statute or board rule listed under sources.

Proximity

No proximity requirement

No supervising-physician relationship required for clinical practice (HRS § 457-8.5).

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

Same separate-application framework as other APRNs (HRS § 457-8.6); whether Hawaii CNS practice commonly includes independent prescribing was not separately confirmed in this research pass.

Written agreement

Not required

Unconditional for clinical practice — same as the general `np` entry.

Practice ownership (corporate practice of medicine)

Licensee-only ownership required — Professional corporation under HRS § 415A-9; non-licensees may not hold equity.

Legal sources for these rules (1)

What a supervising physician costs here

Typical monthly cost in Hawaii

$500$600

Estimate for one Clinical Nurse Specialist. Standard-tier state.

About Hawaii's rules

Hawaii grants APRNs (NP/CRNA/CNM/CNS) full independent practice with no collaborative-agreement requirement (HRS § 457-8.5); prescriptive authority is a separate application, not automatic. Hawaii has no general corporate-practice-of-medicine statute — HRS § 415A-9 requires professional-corporation shareholders to be licensed, but doesn't clearly resolve multi-discipline (e.g. physician+APRN) ownership.

Other clinicians in Hawaii: see the state overview.