UC clinicals in Kentucky and Indiana

Why UC treats the tri-state as home

UC's 2026–27 handbook defines its Ohio/Tri-State area as Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The college holds clinical partnerships there, and when a student's own search stalls, outreach by the Clinical Site Coordinator may lead to a site in that region, even if it means travel. UC's preceptor awards keep a separate tri-state category too.

Three UC programs admit only residents of these states: the adult-gerontology acute care NP in every format, and the post-master's certificates in adult-gerontology primary care and pediatric acute care. For students in those programs, a Kentucky or Indiana site is often the closest option rather than a fallback. What your CSC can do when a search stalls is on UC placement help.

Neither Kentucky nor Indiana is on UC's list of states closed to graduate clinicals. Tennessee, further south, is.

Students weighing a site across the river bring us in for exactly these questions. We search Northern Kentucky and southeast Indiana as closely as Cincinnati itself, confirm that each preceptor holds the license the site's state requires, and suggest a PA only on the Kentucky side, where UC allows one. The Preceptor Application your CSC receives then already answers the state-line points below.

What changes at the state line

The table lines up the three states on the points that change a UC student's plan.

Your RN license, too, has to work in the site's state. All three states belong to the compact, so one multistate license issued where you live works across the metro, while a single-state license stops at its own border. More on RN licenses for UC clinicals.

Kentucky: board oversight and your preceptor's license

Kentucky's Board of Nursing leaves schools based elsewhere alone: by its own account it neither approves them nor expects them to apply, and that holds when they send students to Kentucky sites. Its oversight covers prelicensure programs that start in Kentucky. A statute, KRS 314.101, also exempts a nurse licensed elsewhere who comes to Kentucky for a clinical rotation, as long as the school is a SARA institution or holds a license from Kentucky's Council on Postsecondary Education.

The Kentucky rule most likely to affect your search concerns your preceptor. For online APRN programs, the Board says faculty who oversee students in Kentucky clinical settings, and preceptors working in Kentucky, need an active, unencumbered Kentucky RN license and a Kentucky APRN license. If they make their home in another compact state, the Kentucky APRN license alone is enough. That lines up with UC's own rule that preceptors be licensed in the state where you train, so ask about it in your first conversation with a Kentucky NP.

Kentucky's preceptor-sourcing rule is unsettled

Kentucky's rule on APRN program standards, 201 KAR 20:062, makes the program responsible for securing preceptors for its students, says a student can't be required to find their own, and lets students have input. That reads very differently from UC's expectation that you find and secure your preceptor.

The open question is whether the rule reaches an out-of-state program like UC placing a student in Kentucky. The version on record is silent on that, the official state copy wouldn't load, and the Board's statement about out-of-state programs doesn't answer it directly. Don't present the rule to UC as settled. If it matters to your plan, ask your CSC how UC reads it.

Kentucky practice, PAs and preceptor perks

Kentucky NPs prescribe under collaborative agreements with a Kentucky physician in a same or similar specialty: a CAPA-NS for non-controlled drugs and a CAPA-CS for controlled substances. Either can end or be exempted after four years. These agreements shape your preceptor's prescribing, not your status as a student.

Kentucky is the only one of the three states where UC lets a physician assistant precept, case by case and for limited hours. Nurse-midwifery students are capped at 20 PA hours in ANW8006, with director approval. See UC's PA preceptor rules.

Kentucky rewards precepting for RNs and LPNs: 120 or more one-to-one hours count as 14 contact hours toward continuing competency on the Board's form. The form tells APRNs not to submit it, so an NP preceptor can't use it. St. Elizabeth Healthcare, the Northern Kentucky system in the regional placement network, is covered on Cincinnati clinical sites; Norton Healthcare in Louisville is on UC's list of systems to clear with your CSC first.

Indiana: fewer rules, one open question

Indiana's nursing board limits its accreditation work to schools preparing students for a first RN or LPN license. By its own statement, RN-to-BSN and graduate programs fall outside that review. We saw no Indiana approval that a graduate school from another state must obtain before sending students to Indiana sites, and no Indiana rule aimed at visiting APRN students.

So UC's rules do most of the work in Indiana. PAs can't precept UC students there, Indiana isn't on UC's supplemental background check list, and your preceptor must be licensed to practice in Indiana. AANP describes Indiana NPs as working under a collaborative agreement with a physician; ask your preceptor how that arrangement works at their practice in 2026.

Sources disagree on whether Indiana offers a preceptor tax credit. One reports that a proposed credit failed to advance; another says a credit exists. Until Indiana settles it in public, treat the credit as unconfirmed; a tax professional can tell your preceptor what applies.