Affiliation agreements for Loyola New Orleans practicums
No hour at a Loyola University New Orleans practicum site counts until the site and Loyola have a signed affiliation agreement. Many sites already have one; a new site either signs Loyola's standard form or asks Loyola to review its own contract, which can take months. This page explains the agreement, the review and the rule that costs students hours.
Check a site's agreement early
Tell us the site you have in mind, or ask us to find one already under agreement.
What the agreement is and who handles it
An affiliation agreement is the contract between Loyola and the organization where you train. Loyola's FNP practicum letter describes it as an agreement between Loyola and a third-party facility selected by the student, which captures the division of labor: you choose the site, and the School of Nursing's Clinical Practicum Coordinator obtains the agreement.
Loyola already holds active agreements with hundreds of organizations, visible on the Explore Clinical Locations map. A request for one of those sites is processed quickly. For any other site, the agreement has to be drafted, reviewed and signed before your placement can be approved, and that work sets the pace for everything after it. When a site shows interest, ask about its agreement status before anything else.
Inside the Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement
The current form is the Affiliation Agreement for 2026-27, written for a three-year term. Several of its terms shape your practicum directly.
- Reaching the preceptor is on you. In the agreement's words, "Student is responsible to contact a Facility preceptor."
- Loyola names a faculty coordinator. A Loyola faculty member coordinates with the facility preceptor during the placement.
- The facility orients you. The site provides the orientation it considers necessary.
- Faculty may visit. The agreement gives Loyola faculty the right to visit the site.
- No money changes hands. Loyola and the site owe each other nothing under the agreement, and students receive no pay for practicum time.
- Liability coverage is addressed. The agreement states coverage terms, but Loyola's handbook, this agreement and the dated Nurse Anesthesia handbook give different limits, so confirm current coverage with the School of Nursing.
The coverage question has its own page: liability insurance at Loyola.
When a site sends its own contract
Loyola's bulletin notes that sites may require their own agreement form instead of Loyola's. According to the FNP guide, a contract that is rewritten heavily or drafted by the site can need several months of back and forth, which is why the guide tells students to keep a second site going.
Health systems' own pages show how firm these requirements are. CHRISTUS Health requires a written, signed Clinical Education Affiliation Agreement completed before the placement term. Ochsner LSU Health (North Louisiana) requires an active academic affiliation agreement and runs its clinical process through InPlace, with no paper agreement forms. LCMC Health's learner page makes coverage under a current school-LCMC academic affiliation agreement a condition for every learner.
Louisiana's nursing rules point the same way. The LSBN rule on clinical facilities says agreements between a school and an agency must be written, must address liability insurance and must include a termination clause.
The rule that costs students hours
Loyola's 2026-27 bulletin is direct on this point. A practicum cannot start until every party has signed the agreement, any hours worked earlier are forfeited, and the student may be required to take the course again.
In practice, a preceptor's enthusiasm cannot shorten the timeline. If the site is still reviewing the agreement in the first week of term, clinical days worked during that review do not count, however well they go. The Exxat request also has to reach Placement Approved as a whole, which cannot happen while the contract is open. The Wishlist guide shows how the request and the agreement connect.
Start no hours on a verbal yes. Until the agreement is signed by everyone and your request shows Placement Approved, clinical time can be forfeited.
When the preceptor's employer is a different organization
Some placements need two agreements. The form your preceptor signs states that Loyola must be under contract with the facility and, where the clinician is employed by some other organization, with that employer too.
Picture a nurse practitioner employed by a staffing or physician group who sees patients in a clinic owned by someone else. Loyola would need an agreement with the clinic and a second one with the group. Ask your preceptor early who employs them and who signs contracts for that employer, and pass both answers to the coordinator the same day. What the individual preceptor signs is covered on the Preceptor Agreement page. A clinician employed directly by the site needs only the one agreement with that site.
Programs where the program holds the agreements
In the nurse anesthesia programs, including the dual track with AGACNP, students go to program-affiliated sites the program assigns. Its 2023 supplemental handbook requires a written clinical agreement for each site, approved by the School of Nursing, plus COA approval of the site, before any student is placed there.
Midwifery is less settled: its handbook has the program supplying clinical sites, while the bulletin's Nurse-Midwifery certificate entry uses home-area wording, a conflict worth raising with the CNM Program Director. Loyola states that BSN clinical placements come through its partner Ochsner Health and ABSN placements through Greater New Orleans partners. For graduate NP and DNP students, the agreement starts with the site you bring forward. Students in those programs should take placement questions to their program director rather than searching for sites on their own.
Why Loyola students choose us for agreement timing
Contract review is often the slowest step in a Loyola placement, so we check it first. Before you commit to a site, we find out whether it already holds a Loyola affiliation agreement, whether it will sign the standard form or wants its own contract, who the authorized signer is, and whether the preceptor's employer needs a second agreement. We also confirm that the site's legal name and address match what the Wishlist asks for.
That early read lets us steer you toward sites that fit your three-month window and keep a backup moving when a review drags. Loyola's placement office and faculty sign off on each placement; we handle the groundwork so the agreement details reaching them are accurate and complete. Ask us about your site.
Questions Loyola students ask
How long is a Loyola affiliation agreement valid?
The current Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement, the 2026-27 form, is written for a three-year term. A site that signed an earlier version may be on different dates, so ask the Clinical Practicum Coordinator whether an existing agreement is still active before you rely on it for your term.
Who signs the affiliation agreement at my site?
An authorized legal signer for the organization, the person you name in that field of the Exxat Wishlist. At a small practice that may be the owner or administrator; at a health system it is often a legal or academic affairs office. Your preceptor can sign only if they also hold contract authority for the organization.
Can my site use its own contract instead of Loyola's?
Yes. Loyola's bulletin notes that sites may require their own agreement form. Expect a longer review, since the FNP guide says a site's own contract, or a heavily marked-up version of Loyola's, can take several months. Tell the Clinical Practicum Coordinator about the site's form the day you learn of it, and keep a backup site in progress until the agreement is fully signed.
Are preceptors or students paid under Loyola's affiliation agreement?
No. Under the standard agreement, Loyola and the site owe each other no payment, and practicum work is unpaid for students. Any extra fee a site charges students is, according to Loyola's FNP guide, the student's responsibility, so ask the site about fees before you commit.
What if I already did hours before the agreement was signed?
Tell your faculty of record right away. Under the 2026-27 bulletin, time worked before the agreement took effect does not count, and a repeat of the course is possible. Your faculty and program director decide how the term proceeds from there, so raise it early rather than logging the time and hoping it passes review.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Loyola's own bulletin, program pages, practicum guides, forms and licensure disclosures. Your plan of study, your practicum guide, your program director and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
Loyola asks you to select your own preceptor and site. We make that the easy part.
Tell us your Loyola program, where you live and which term your next practicum starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, check whether the site already has a Loyola affiliation agreement, and prepare everything your Exxat Wishlist needs.
- Preceptors matched to the course: outpatient primary care for
NURS G823, pediatrics and obstetrics forNURS G829, acute care forNURS G902, psychiatric care forNURS G856 - Preceptor CV, license and Nursys PDF, the Preceptor Agreement and the site's signer details ready for the Wishlist
- In your own community, in Louisiana or any state where Loyola approves your practicum
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