SB 646 - This act modifies provisions relating to the licensing of advanced practice registered nurses (APRN) and collaborative practice arrangements. The act creates a license for advanced practice registered nursing and specifies that the practice of advanced practice nursing includes the practice of professional nursing, conducting advanced assessments beyond those authorized for a registered nurse, ordering and interpreting diagnostic procedures, establishing primary and differential diagnoses, prescribing, ordering, administering, dispensing, and furnishing therapeutic measures, and providing referrals. APRNs shall wear identification that clearly identifies the nurse as an APRN when providing patient care. If an APRN meets certain requirements set forth in the act, he or she may practice advanced practice nursing without a collaborative agreement. An APRN has the authority to prescribe, dispense, and administer nonscheduled legend drugs and nonscheduled legend drug samples. Currently, the Board of Nursing may grant a certificate of controlled substance prescriptive authority to an APRN who completes an advanced pharmacology course, a minium of three hundred clock hours preceptorial experience in the prescription of drugs, and a minimum of one thousand hours of practice in an advanced practice nursing category, and has a controlled substance prescribing authority delegated in a collaborative practice arrangement. This act provides that the Board may grant a certificate of controlled substance prescriptive authority to an advanced practice registered nurse to prescribe certain scheduled drugs within the parameters of a collaborative practice arrangement. APRNs shall not administer certain scheduled drugs for procedures outside the APRN's scope of practice. In addition to other requirements, an applicant for an APRN license shall complete the required post-graduate education as provided in the act and provide documentation of certification in one of the four APRN roles from a nationally recognized certifying body. This act is identical to provisions contained in HB 1773 (2018), and is similar to HB 2490 (2018), SB 42 (2017), HB 165 (2017), SB 826 (2016), HCS/HB 1465 (2016), and HCS/HB 1866 (2016). JAMIE ANDREWS