Moving Florida ARNP

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Hi Everyone,

My family and I will be moving to Florida in the next couple of months since my husband was admitted into CRNA school. I am currently practicing as APNP in wisconsin and am having a hard time with the Florida license. Its seems intense. Where do you get fingerprinting done if you dont want to pay $300 dollars and are not in florida? What is average pay for APNP in Florida? Any advice?

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I can't remember where I heard this/read this, may have been on this forum, but there was an NP who lived in FL but refused to work there and did locums out of state just because practice laws were not ideal--but loved FL too much not to live there. I don't have any personal experience myself with FL practice laws but know certain states can be EXCEPTIONALLY difficult and time consuming to get licensed--apparently CA can take six months for it to go through :o Hopefully someone here can give you some better guidance.

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Hello, whatever you do, don't settle for less than 90,000 with productivity bonus if full time and if part time no less than $50 per hour.

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What part of Florida are you moving to? The pay is generally lower than elsewhere. Florida does not allow you to prescribe any scheduled medications, so no DEA license is needed. Tampa is saturated so the salary is slightly lower than elsewhere. However, I agree with the above poster. Especially with experience, don't settle for less than 90 plus productivity bonus. Sorry can't help you with the license. There are some livescan providers that had out of state locations. I would check because it shouldn't be $300.

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It's crazy to think I can't prescribe cough syrup for someone with an aweful cough. Ugh Florida. I guess it will be nice to tell patients I simply cant. The license wasn't to bad. Except I had to keep calling Florida depth of licensing and they lost a few of my forms. Thanks for the pay advice. I was offered a job at 70k and declined. Thought it was crazy low.

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Hi. Overall, I don't believe FL is the best place to work for APNs. The pay is generally exceptionally very low. It's also a right to work state which doesn't help. I've also heard that in some locations the medical care is not very good (that's actually coming from some of my patients who are snow birds). I'm sure there are APNs who have had good work experiences down there but it wouldn't be the place for me. Good luck!

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Florida is one of the worst states to be an APRN.

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On the contrary, I believe FL is the best place for APN to work. The original intent of APN was to be physicians extender. APN training is inadequate; therefore, close supervision is needed as way to prevent them from harming patients... That supposedly 'supervision' is still very lax in FL.

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On the contrary, I believe FL is the best place for APN to work. The original intent of APN was to be physicians extender. APN training is inadequate; therefore, close supervision is needed as way to prevent them from harming patients... That supposedly 'supervision' is still very lax in FL.

Um, no.

I live in a state with 100% independence for NPs (WA) and is considered, along with Oregon, one of the best places to practice.

I don't hear of any massive malpractice suits or any news reports of renegade and poorly trained NPs harming patients. My hospital frequently uses NP/CRNAs and the physician-led groups are clamoring for more to help in specialty and hospitalist groups.

The SDN dogma and rhetoric is going to your head. SDN isn't real life.

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.

For live fingerprints scans I used a local police dept. (for Oregon licenses). I think it was free.

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Specializes in Adult Nurse Practitioner.
On the contrary, I believe FL is the best place for APN to work. The original intent of APN was to be physicians extender. APN training is inadequate; therefore, close supervision is needed as way to prevent them from harming patients... That supposedly 'supervision' is still very lax in FL.

Without knowing the extent of education and licensure, how can you make this blanket statement? Nurse practitioners have consistently been found to provide AS EQUAL care as any primary care practitioner. The role of the nurse practitioner is NOT to be a "physician extender", but to provide a service need as a primary care practitioner in the field. The fact the nurse practitioners are now focusing on acute care areas is a testament to the growing need and effectiveness nurse practitioners are providing. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia offer full autonomy to nurse practitioners so your blanket statement is an affront to nurse practitioners, shows your lack of knowledge, and unfortunately shows how nurses do not understand the role of the nurse practitioner. Are there poor performing nurse practitioners? Sure...but what about "bad doctors".

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Without knowing the extent of education and licensure, how can you make this blanket statement? Nurse practitioners have consistently been found to provide AS EQUAL care as any primary care practitioner. The role of the nurse practitioner is NOT to be a "physician extender", but to provide a service need as a primary care practitioner in the field. The fact the nurse practitioners are now focusing on acute care areas is a testament to the growing need and effectiveness nurse practitioners are providing. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia offer full autonomy to nurse practitioners so your blanket statement is an affront to nurse practitioners, shows your lack of knowledge, and unfortunately shows how nurses do not understand the role of the nurse practitioner. Are there poor performing nurse practitioners? Sure...but what about "bad doctors".

How cute, you called "AndersRN" a nurse! Obviously you haven't met before. If you stick around long enough he'll prove to you through his uneducated and obscenely biased and ill-informed posts that he actually despises nurses and is simply an internet troll here to argue. When he is ever asked to back up these outlandish statements with research his answer is always "because I say so", obviously not something an educated RN would say. He hangs around the APRN forums to talk about how stupid NP's are and spew hate about the DNP programs who churn out NP's who may think themselves as smart as "doctors".

I normally don't look at or respond to anything he posts anymore but I saw your sincere post and couldn't let you keep thinking that an actual registered nurse would say something so foolish about NP's.

As for the OP, I love Florida as a state and vacation spot. Nursing sadly seems behind the times there though. I wanted to take a travel nurse contract there but I kept getting lowball offers and hearing how hard they work you with unsafe ratio's. Luckily for your husband I hear CRNA's get paid pretty well there considering the lower cost of living in most places but it sounds like NP's get treated terrible. I wonder if you could work for a VA hospital. I hear at the VA it's considered military law and not state law so you would probably get to practice at the full extent of your ability. Perhaps the pay would even be better and with good benefits.

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