Affiliation Agreement (Clinical Contract)

This is a legally binding agreement between our company and the clinical facility.  By law, it must exist between any educational facility and the clinical facility before any students are sent there.   It is an extensive agreement which spells out many things.  It is not a field trip permission slip and there is no such thing as a 'verbal consent' to do clinical.  If this agreement is not in place, you cannot legally do clinical.   Failing to have this agreement in place will cause you to fail the course.  It will be reported to the Board of Nursing and they may elect to take action against you.   Even if the Board does not take action, the State may still take action or the hospital could institute civil proceedings.   

Very few individuals in a facility are allowed to bind the facility into legal contracts with other entities.  Typically, only the CEO or Director of Nursing may sign these agreements.  Various institutions call executive management by differing names, but only upper executive management level positions are given this type of signature authority. 

In a hospital, the contract proceedings are started with the Nurse Educator, progress to the legal department, to the CEO/DON for signature and back to the Nurse Educator.  It is then sent to us for legal review and signature.  Only when both parties have signed, is it considered to be executed. 

State and Federal agencies will send the contract to the “Procurement Officer’ who then processes it and sends it to the State’s Attorney (Attorney General’s Office) for review, it is sent back to Procurement for signature, and returned to us for our review/signature. 

In the military, Officers are given what is known as a ‘warrant’ which tells them what they can and cannot sign binding the Federal government in a contract.  In most military hospitals, the department director is allowed to sign. 

In private, smaller institutions, the owner or managing partner signs the agreement. 

Everyone has their own attorneys read the agreement before signing.  Most want to make revisions, use their own contract etc.   Your clinical fee covers the cost of our attorneys negotiating this process.  Rather than charge each refresher for their individual contract, we charge a flat rate.  Expect this process to take 3-4 months to complete.