The UC Educational Affiliation Agreement: standard form, site contracts and timing

What the agreement is and why it gates everything

The Educational Affiliation Agreement (EAA) is the contract that lets UC students train at a given site. UC's Clinical Planning page says agreements are required for all clinical rotations, and the May 2026 Preceptor Guide says the site agreement must be in effect before clinical activity begins. No hours count at a site that lacks one.

It is a separate thing from your preceptor's approval. The Preceptor Application vets the person; the agreement binds the organization. You can hold a welcome email for an approved preceptor and still be unable to start because the site hasn't finished its side of the contract.

One older UC document says something different. A 2022 networking guide stated that UC didn't require an agreement, but UC's current pages say one must be in place, so treat the 2022 line as out of date.

UC's standard agreement or the site's own

Whether a site will accept UC's standard form is often the single answer that decides which term you can start, so ask it in your first conversation. A site that already has an active agreement with UC may not need a new one at all, which is why the Preceptor Application asks your preceptor about it.

Who handles which part

• You: before the packet goes in, find out whether the site has a UC agreement and who its administrative contact is, and pass on anything the site says about using its own contract.
• Your preceptor: enters the site details, the administrative contact and whether an agreement is active on the Preceptor Application.
• Your CSC: supplies UC's standard agreement, emails it to the site's administrative contact and puts it in place. A 2023 UC news article described coordinators helping with agreements case by case.
• Course faculty: UC's preceptor pages list arranging a contract between the clinical agency or preceptor and UC among faculty duties.
• UC's legal side: the Office of General Counsel approved the standard agreement, and UC's lawyers negotiate when a site wants its own terms.
• The site: its administrative contact receives the agreement and works through the site's own review.

UC's public pages don't name who signs on either side. If a site asks, or your preceptor runs a small practice and handles contracts personally, put the question to your CSC.

Systems with rules of their own

Some organizations route student agreements through a central office. UC tells students to contact their CSC before approaching a preceptor at Allina, Cleveland Clinic, Essentia, Nationwide Children's, Norton, The Little Clinic, Stanford Health Care or Summa Health, so start with your coordinator for any of those.

Around Cincinnati, the health systems' own pages describe their side of the contract. UC Health says an affiliation agreement must be established with the student's school. TriHealth asks for an existing student affiliation agreement and a certificate of insurance from the school. St. Elizabeth Healthcare in Northern Kentucky says NP students need a separate contract with St. Elizabeth Physicians, apart from the hospital's own. The Cincinnati clinical sites page goes through each system.

Military bases are the outlier. UC allows clinicals on U.S. military bases, but it says the contract can take six months to a year and may not come through.

Fees written into the agreement

Some sites charge an administrative fee for hosting students, and that money goes to the site, not to the preceptor. Cleveland Clinic and Atrium Health (Charlotte-Mecklenburg) write their fee into the affiliation agreement itself, and UC then has to collect it from you and pass it along. Other sites may bill students directly, and the 2026–27 handbook lists site fees among the placement costs that fall to students, next to travel, temporary housing and extra screening.

UC's Clinical Planning page says each site sets its own fee structure, so amounts differ from one site to the next. Ask about fees in your first conversation with a site, because a fee built into the agreement is one you'll pay through UC. The clinical site fees page covers what to ask and when.

When the agreement runs late

UC is plain about late packets: it can't promise an agreement will be ready if the packet missed its deadline. Because clinical hours only count inside semester dates and never before the agreement is in effect, days lost waiting on a contract are days you can't log.

The week-2 rule still applies on top. If the agreement isn't finished and the site isn't secured by the close of week 2, UC's track documents point you to withdrawing by the drop date; the week-2 site deadline page explains the choices.

What helps most: ask early whether the site will sign UC's standard form, give your CSC the right administrative contact the first time, and keep a second site in view if the first one wants its own contract close to the term.

That early legwork is what students hand to us. Every site we put forward comes with the agreement answers already gathered: whether it signs UC's standard form, who its administrative contact is, and whether a fee is written in. Your CSC and the two legal teams set the pace from there, starting from a complete file with a backup site already in view. Tell us your term and we'll start lining up options.