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PA Licensure Compact Update: Iowa Governor Signs HF 300

May 28, 2025

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed HF 300 into law on May 27, making Iowa the 17th state to join the PA Licensure Compact.

Leaders from the Iowa Physician Assistant Society (IPAS) attended the signing ceremony for the bill, which passed unanimously in both the Iowa House and the Senate.

“The signing of HF 300 is a powerful milestone for Iowa PAs,” said IPAS President Marc Doobey, MPAS, PA-C, DFAAPA. “By joining the PA Licensure Compact, we’ve expanded access to care, reduced barriers for clinicians, and reaffirmed our state’s commitment to a forward-thinking, collaborative healthcare workforce. This unanimous, bipartisan achievement sends a clear message: Iowa values its PAs and the patients we serve.”

The PA Licensure Compact creates a streamlined pathway for qualified PAs to practice in any member state through a single compact privilege, eliminating the need to secure individual licenses in each state. This not only eases administrative burdens but also facilitates quicker deployment of PAs to areas with the most urgent healthcare needs.

IPAS Legislative Chair Jim Earel, PA-C, said the signing of HF 300 is the culmination of work done over the past several years to develop great working relationships with legislators, the governor’s office, and other stakeholders that focused on “the primary goals of improving access to care and making sure that PAs have a voice in the medical community that both patients and legislators appreciate.”

“HF 300 goes a long way to make PA practice flexible, allowing PAs from other states a more streamlined licensing option that will allow Iowa to attract out of state talent, especially in border communities, bolstering the PA workforce at a time when provider shortages are being felt in communities both large and small,” Earel said.

Iowa joins an expanding list of states that have already enacted the compact, including Montana, Delaware, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Nebraska, Virginia, Oklahoma, Maine, Colorado, Tennessee, Minnesota, Ohio, Arkansas, and Kansas.

The compact is now in the process of being operationalized, which will take anywhere from 18 to 24 months. Once operationalized, eligible PAs can then complete a single application to receive a compact privilege (the equivalent to a license) from each compact state in which they intend to practice.

To learn more about the PA Licensure Compact, visit our page here.

If you would like to advocate for the PA Compact in your state or more information of where your state may be in this process, contact your state chapter or your AAPA state liaison.

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