Virtual Clinical Rotations for NP Students
In virtual clinical rotations, you help care for patients by video under a preceptor’s supervision. Many search results for virtual clinical rotations are observerships for medical students and graduates, so we’ll focus on what remote rotations look like for nurse practitioner (NP) students. We’ll explain how a telehealth rotation works, whether the hours count toward your degree and how to check your program’s policy. You’ll also see what Clinical Match Me’s own placement data shows about remote rotations: which specialties offer them, which tracks request them and how demand has changed since 2021.
TL;DR
- In a virtual NP clinical rotation, you join your preceptor’s telehealth visits and take part in each patient’s care.
- Under the 2022 national standards for NP education, telehealth care can count toward the minimum of 750 direct patient care hours. Simulation can’t.
- Your program decides whether it accepts remote hours, so check its policy before you request a remote rotation.
- On Clinical Match Me, every remote specialty is in mental health, and 27% of mental health placement requests from October 2025 to September 2026 were for a remote rotation.
- In our data, remote rotations made up 40% of mental health requests in 2022 and 29% in 2025.
What’s a virtual NP clinical rotation?
A virtual NP clinical rotation is a precepted rotation that takes place by telehealth. Your preceptor sees patients by video, you join those visits from your own location, and you take part in each patient’s care under your preceptor’s supervision. Because you’re caring for real patients, the time can count as direct patient care hours if your program accepts it. Other names for virtual clinical rotations are telehealth rotations and remote rotations.
In a typical telehealth rotation, you’ll:
- Join video visits for evaluations and follow-ups
- Interview patients and present each case to your preceptor
- Discuss diagnoses, medications and treatment plans with your preceptor
- Write visit notes in the practice’s electronic health record, if your preceptor gives you access
Your faculty can evaluate you remotely, too. The 2022 Standards for Quality Nurse Practitioner Education include remote observation among the ways faculty can assess your clinical skills. The National Task Force also says your progress meetings with your preceptor and faculty can take place virtually.
How is it different from a virtual observership?
In an observership, you watch a physician’s visits. In a virtual NP clinical rotation, you take part in patient care. The national standards define direct patient care hours as time in which you provide clinical care to patients, so ask your program before you count any hours spent observing.
Do virtual clinical rotations count toward NP clinical hours?
They can. Under the 2022 national standards, care you provide to patients through telehealth can count as direct patient care hours. Your program decides whether it accepts them, so confirm its policy before you request a remote rotation.
Two numbers come up when you research NP clinical hours:
- 750 direct patient care hours is the minimum the 2022 national standards set for every NP population-focused track. Telehealth care can count toward it, but simulation can’t. The task force expected programs to take three to five years to make the change, so check your program’s current total.
- 500 faculty-supervised clinical hours is the minimum ANCC and AANPCB require for national certification.
The standards also ask programs that count telehealth hours to describe those experiences and their expected outcomes, so your program may have its own rules for remote rotations. For more detail, read our guide to what counts as clinical hours for NP students.
Which specialties offer telehealth clinical rotations?
On Clinical Match Me, you can request a remote rotation in four mental health specialties: psychiatry, psychotherapy, child and adolescent psychiatry, and child and adolescent psychotherapy. Psychiatric evaluations, medication follow-ups and therapy sessions depend mostly on conversation, so they work well by video.
In Clinical Match Me’s placement data from October 2025 to September 2026, remote psychiatry was the most requested of the four, at 5% of all placement requests. Among psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) students, it made up 15% of requests.
In-person psychiatry still leads for PMHNP students, at 42% of their requests in our data. If you’re on the PMHNP track, our guide to PMHNP clinical hours and requirements explains how many hours you need and which rotations PMHNP students request.
Psychotherapy rotations and PMHNP certification
If you plan to certify with ANCC as a PMHNP, you’ll need clinical training in at least two psychotherapeutic treatment modalities, according to ANCC’s PMHNP-BC eligibility requirements. A psychotherapy rotation, in person or remote, can help you meet that requirement if your program accepts it.
How has demand for virtual clinical rotations changed?
In Clinical Match Me’s placement data, remote rotations made up a smaller share of mental health requests in 2025 than in 2022. The remote share rose from 2021 to 2022, then fell every year through 2025. Here’s the share of mental health placement requests that were for a remote rotation each year:
- 2021: 34%
- 2022: 40%
- 2023: 32%
- 2024: 30%
- 2025: 29%
- The last 12 months (October 2025 to September 2026): 27%
Remote psychiatry is still one of the most requested PMHNP rotations in our data, as the chart above shows.
Which NP tracks request virtual clinical rotations?
In Clinical Match Me’s placement data from October 2025 to September 2026, PMHNP students requested remote rotations more often than FNP, AGACNP or AGPCNP students. Here’s the share of PMHNP and FNP requests that were for a remote rotation:
- Psychiatric-mental health (PMHNP): 25%
- Family (FNP): <1%
PMHNP is the mental health track, and every remote specialty on Clinical Match Me is in mental health. Nearly every FNP request in our data was for an in-person rotation. If you’re an FNP student, our guide to FNP clinical hours explains the hours and rotations FNP programs require.
To see where remote requests fit in the full mix of specialties, read our guide to NP clinical rotations by specialty.
How to check your program’s policy on virtual clinical rotations
Your program decides whether a remote rotation counts, so confirm the details before you request one.
- Read your clinical handbook. Look for its rules on telehealth hours and remote clinical sites.
- Ask your clinical coordinator. Under the national standards, faculty evaluate every clinical site and preceptor new to your program before you start there. Bring specific questions:
- Does the program accept telehealth hours for this course?
- Is there a limit on how many of your hours can be remote?
- Does the program need to approve the preceptor and the practice before you start?
- How will faculty observe and evaluate you during a remote rotation?
- Do any extra rules apply if the patients live in another state?
- Check where the patients are. For telehealth, health professionals must be licensed or legally permitted to practice in the state where the patient is located, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If your preceptor sees patients in other states, ask your program whether that affects your rotation.
- Plan a private space. You’ll be part of confidential patient visits, so set up a quiet, private room and a reliable internet connection.
- Request your rotation. Once your program confirms that virtual clinical rotations count, submit your placement request for the remote specialty you need. Although many students are placed within days, try to submit your placement requests as early as possible. The sooner you do, the sooner we can place you.
Virtual clinical rotations: questions students ask
Can FNP students do virtual clinical rotations?
Your program decides whether it accepts remote hours. On Clinical Match Me, every remote specialty is in mental health, and <1% of FNP placement requests in our data were for a remote rotation.
Can PMHNP students do remote clinical rotations?
Yes, if your program accepts telehealth hours. In Clinical Match Me’s data from October 2025 to September 2026, 25% of PMHNP placement requests were for a remote rotation.
Which online NP clinical options count toward your hours?
Telehealth care you provide to patients under a preceptor’s supervision can count toward the 750 direct patient care hours in the national standards. Simulation can’t. The National Task Force says it “may support, but not replace,” direct patient care, and programs can use it to prepare and assess you before your precepted rotations begin. For observerships and case-based courses, where you watch visits or study cases, ask your program before you count the hours.
How much does a remote rotation cost?
Our standard NP preceptor cost is the same regardless of specialty. Most preceptors charge a flat rate of $1,995 for rotations up to 250 hours. That price includes our fee and the preceptor’s honorarium (their compensation for teaching you), and payment plans are available for up to 24 months.
Find a preceptor for a virtual or in-person rotation
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About this data
The Clinical Match Me figures in this article come from anonymized placement requests that students, most of them NP students, made on Clinical Match Me. Unless a sentence names another period, they use requests made from October 2025 to September 2026. The yearly remote figures use full calendar years from 2021 to 2025. We count a request as remote when it’s for one of the four remote specialties: psychiatry, psychotherapy, child and adolescent psychiatry, or child and adolescent psychotherapy.
Every figure is a share of requests, and the figures describe students who used Clinical Match Me rather than all NP students nationally. We update the data monthly, and this version is from October 2026. We link each requirement to its source.
You’re welcome to reuse these figures under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. Just credit Clinical Match Me as the source and link to this page.
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