NP preceptors across Colorado, from Pueblo to the Western Slope
Outside the Colorado Springs and Denver metros, a UCCS preceptor search changes shape: fewer clinicians, longer drives, and sometimes a single practice serving a whole town. Pueblo, Northern Colorado, Grand Junction and the mountain valleys each call for a different plan. Below: regional systems, the rules that weigh more outside the cities, rural programs and our statewide search.
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Pueblo, Cañon City and the Arkansas Valley
South of Colorado Springs, CommonSpirit Health is the one system with a published student route in the sources behind this guide. Its Student Placement and Shadowing page lists St. Mary-Corwin in Pueblo, where the school's own process applies and the hospital's Staff Development Educator is the named contact, and St. Thomas More in Cañon City, which follows CommonSpirit's student placement process and keeps current files on students and instructors to meet regulatory requirements.
Neither entry names UCCS or describes NP preceptorships in particular, and no other Pueblo system appears in them, so each practice is approached directly. For FNP and AGNP students the useful leads are family practices, urgent care and community clinics rather than hospital units. PMHNP students can add inpatient and outpatient psychiatric settings, both of which UCCS encourages.
Northern Colorado: Fort Collins, Loveland and Greeley
Northern Colorado holds two metro areas of its own: Greeley, with 378,426 residents, and Fort Collins-Loveland, with 377,292, in the 2025 Census estimates. UCHealth's northern region includes Medical Center of the Rockies, Poudre Valley, Greeley Hospital and Mountain Crest, and Banner Health's Northern Colorado group includes North Colorado Medical Center, McKee, Fort Collins, Sterling Regional and East Morgan.
In the 2023-24 statewide flu document, both systems used My Clinical Exchange for student documentation. Their NP student processes fall outside the sources behind this guide, so treat each clinic as its own request and confirm its requirements early.
Near the Wyoming line, a Cheyenne clinic means crossing into another state. Wyoming is on UCCS's list, but hours there need the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator's approval, and Wyoming expects programs to notify its Board in writing before each student's clinicals; see Wyoming.
Grand Junction and the Western Slope
Grand Junction's hospitals and the primary care, urgent care and specialty practices around them are the natural starting point on the Western Slope. Farther out, towns spread along long valleys, and a single family practice may be the only realistic site within reach.
The Utah line is close but not a simple crossing. Utah is on UCCS's approved list, but its rule requires out-of-state programs to satisfy the state's Division and Board before placements, and no public list of approved programs could be located to confirm where UCCS stands. A Utah lead would also need UCCS's sign-off and a license that works there. Keep your hours on the Colorado side unless UCCS confirms otherwise; see the Utah guide.
Students in the Four Corners and the San Luis Valley face a similar question with New Mexico, whose Board requires approval for programs with in-state clinicals lasting more than a semester; whether that covers NP programs is unclear.
Mountain towns and the eastern plains
In resort valleys and farm counties, the preceptor pool can shrink to a handful of clinicians. The statewide facility groupings place UCHealth's Yampa Valley Medical Center in its northern region and list CommonSpirit's St. Anthony Summit among its hospitals, and small hospitals, independent clinics and NP-owned practices fill in the rest. The Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence describes rural communities across the state that cannot offer full access to primary care.
On the eastern plains, the state line is a hard stop. Kansas and Nebraska are not among the 14 states UCCS accepts for its NP programs, so a clinic a few minutes across the border cannot host your NP hours. The approved states page lists where UCCS allows NP clinicals.
UCCS rules that weigh more outside the metros
Distance sharpens these rules:
- One preceptor or site can cover at most 330 FNP or AGNP hours unless it is a major health system, so no single small-town clinic can carry a full 630- or 770-hour program. PMHNP limits follow your handbook: 270 hours in the 630-hour edition, 440 in the 770-hour edition.
- Telehealth tops out at 45 hours across the FNP and AGNP programs, after a tutorial. For PMHNP students it counts when you sit in the office beside the provider; doing it from home takes Option Coordinator approval, and the provider has to practice in an approved state.
- FNP and AGNP students may bank up to 55 hours at their current site, counted only in
NURS 6980, with approval. - Each semester outside Synthesis, UCCS will open at most three brand-new Affiliation Agreements for you, so favor rural sites that are likely to sign.
- The clock on your hours starts with UCCS's "good to go" email, so every week a remote clinic spends on paperwork comes straight out of your semester.
The full rules are on what counts for FNP and AGNP.
Rural programs for preceptors and students
Colorado runs a state income tax credit for preceptors who teach without compensation in rural and frontier areas, for students at accredited Colorado institutions, and UCCS's own preceptor page links to it. Who qualifies and how it works are on Colorado NP practice and preceptors.
UCCS also offers a Rural Health Workforce Initiative scholarship, funded by the legislature, for RN to BSN and graduate students willing to commit to practicing for two years in Colorado's rural and frontier counties; ask the college about current openings before you plan around it. For psychiatric students, the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence runs a Rural NP Behavioral Health Fellowship covering Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming, along with virtual training for APRN preceptors with a psychiatric focus.
How we search statewide
Our placement desk searches wherever you live in Colorado. We map the clinics within your realistic driving range, match each one to your course and rotation, screen clinicians against UCCS's preceptor rules, and ask every site up front about mCE, its signing authority and its own student requirements. Rural searches start earlier and run wider, and we plan around the 330-hour cap from the first rotation.
When a site says yes, you receive a preceptor with every detail the Clinical Site Sheet needs, exact hours included, in time for the college to start its agreement work. Approval belongs to UCCS; our part is sending a file the college can process without corrections, and lining up a new preceptor if yours drops. Send your course and town through the form below, or read how it works.
Questions UCCS students ask
Can I do UCCS NP clinical hours in a rural Colorado town?
Yes. UCCS asks you to find hours where you live, anywhere in your approved state, and a rural practice qualifies when the setting and preceptor meet UCCS's rules and UCCS approves it. The limits are practical: fewer clinicians, the 330-hour cap per FNP or AGNP site, and the weeks a new agreement can take.
Can telehealth stand in for a local preceptor if I live far from clinics?
Only in part. FNP and AGNP students can log no more than 45 telehealth hours over the entire program. PMHNP telehealth does count, as long as you are physically with the provider; remote participation needs Option Coordinator approval, and the provider must practice in an approved state. Most of your hours still need an in-person preceptor.
Which Pueblo hospitals publish a student process?
CommonSpirit's student placement page covers St. Mary-Corwin in Pueblo, pointing to the school's process with the hospital's Staff Development Educator as contact, and St. Thomas More in Cañon City. Neither mentions UCCS or NP preceptorships specifically. For FNP and AGNP students, the outpatient practices around a hospital matter more, since hospital hours do not count.
Can I do hours across the border in Wyoming, Utah or Kansas?
Wyoming and Utah are on UCCS's approved list, but hours outside the state where you live need the practicum coordinator's sign-off and a license that works there, and each state adds its own rules for out-of-state programs. Kansas and Nebraska are not on UCCS's NP list, so clinics there cannot host NP hours.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against UCCS's catalog, practicum handbooks and college pages. Your degree plan, the handbook for your cohort and the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
UCCS asks you to find your clinical hours where you live. Let us run that search.
Tell us your UCCS track, your next clinical course and where you live. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the details your Clinical Site Sheet needs, early enough for the agreement to be signed before the semester.
- Preceptors matched to the course: pediatrics for
NURS 6900, acute and chronic care forNURS 6915andNURS 6925, psychiatric prescribers forNURS 6801toNURS 6803 - Credentials, license, certification and the site's signer ready for the Clinical Site Sheet
- In Colorado Springs, along the Front Range, or in any of UCCS's approved states
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