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Start a clinic / Oregon

How to start a medical clinic in Oregon.

What a founder needs to know in Oregon: who can own a practice, which state approvals apply, how nurse practitioners and PAs can work, and where to register. Every fact links to its source.

Updated October 2026Sources linked
OROregonStarting a clinic, at a glance
Corporate practice of medicine
StrictOwnership generally limited to licensed physicians
Certificate of need program
YesState review for some facilities or equipment
Nurse practitioner authority
Full practiceAANP classification
Register your business with
Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division
Checked October 2026

Ownership: Oregon has a strict corporate practice of medicine bar: medical practices must be majority-owned by Oregon-licensed physicians, and SB 951 (signed June 9, 2025) bars management services organizations and their insiders from owning or controlling the practice, bans the "friendly physician" model, and bars MSOs from controlling hiring, physician pay, schedules, coding, pricing and payer contracts.

Certificate of need: Oregon's CON program, run by the Oregon Health Authority, reviews hospitals, skilled nursing and intermediate care and long-term care facilities, new hospital services and certain bed increases.

Nurse practitioners: AANP classifies Oregon as full practice: NPs may evaluate, diagnose and prescribe under Board of Nursing licensure (O.R.S. 678.375) with no physician collaboration or transition-to-practice requirement listed.

Who can own a medical clinic in Oregon

Oregon has a strict corporate practice of medicine bar: medical practices must be majority-owned by Oregon-licensed physicians, and SB 951 (signed June 9, 2025) bars management services organizations and their insiders from owning or controlling the practice, bans the "friendly physician" model, and bars MSOs from controlling hiring, physician pay, schedules, coding, pricing and payer contracts. The MSO rules apply to new arrangements from January 1, 2026 and to existing ones from January 1, 2029, with exemptions for hospitals and hospital-owned clinics, PACE, some behavioral health programs and telemedicine entities with no Oregon physical presence.

Sources: sidley.com, reedsmith.com

Business entity and registration

Physicians usually form a professional corporation or other professional medical entity that is majority-owned and majority-governed by Oregon-licensed physicians, registered with the Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division. Lay investors generally participate only through an MSO that now must comply with SB 951.

Sources: reedsmith.com, sos.oregon.gov

Certificate of need in Oregon

Oregon's CON program, run by the Oregon Health Authority, reviews hospitals, skilled nursing and intermediate care and long-term care facilities, new hospital services and certain bed increases. NCSL does not list ASCs or imaging as covered, so typical physician offices, ASCs and imaging centers do not need a CON.

Sources: ncsl.org, oregon.gov

Licenses, registrations and state agencies

The Oregon Health Authority licenses hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, freestanding birthing centers, outpatient renal dialysis facilities and extended stay centers. Physician offices are excluded from the ASC definition unless they have a distinct area used for outpatient surgery on a regular and organized basis beyond office procedures under local anesthesia or conscious sedation, and an ASC may not treat patients without a state license. We found no state license for ordinary physician offices or urgent care clinics.

Sources: oregon.public.law, oregon.gov

Oregon-specific requirements to know

SB 951 also voids most noncompete agreements for physicians, NPs and PAs (with exceptions for owners) and limits nondisclosure and non-disparagement clauses, effective June 9, 2025. Mergers, acquisitions and similar deals involving health care entities that meet OHA criteria must be noticed to the Health Care Market Oversight program (ORS 415.500 et seq.). Practitioners must register with the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (ORS 431A.877).

Sources: reedsmith.com, oregon.gov, oregon.public.law

Agencies you will deal with

Nurse practitioners and physician assistants

Nurse practitioners: AANP classifies Oregon as full practice: NPs may evaluate, diagnose and prescribe under Board of Nursing licensure (O.R.S. 678.375) with no physician collaboration or transition-to-practice requirement listed.

Sources: storage.aanp.org

Physician assistants: Oregon PAs (titled physician associates) practice under a written collaboration agreement signed with a physician or their employer, with a specified collaboration plan required until the PA has 2,000 post-graduate clinical hours; agreements are kept at the practice and not filed with the Oregon Medical Board.

Sources: oregon.gov

Med spas, injectables and IV therapy in Oregon

A med spa that provides medical treatment is subject to Oregon's CPOM rules, so it generally needs to be owned by Oregon-licensed physicians, with any lay investment through an MSO that complies with SB 951. The Board of Nursing's October 2024 IV hydration interpretive statement says only physicians, PAs, APRNs with prescriptive privilege and naturopathic physicians with a prescribing endorsement may prescribe IV products, patients cannot self-select an IV "cocktail" from a menu, and RNs and LPNs act only on a prescriber's order within their individual scope.

Sources: reedsmith.com, oregon.gov

Planning an aesthetic or IV business? See how to start a med spa and how to start an IV therapy business.

Step-by-step checklist in Oregon

  1. Choose your structure and check ownership rules. Decide who will own the practice and confirm it fits Oregon’s corporate practice of medicine rules. Oregon has a strict corporate practice of medicine bar: medical practices must be majority-owned by Oregon-licensed physicians, and SB 951 (signed June 9, 2025) bars management services organizations and their insiders from owning or controlling the practice, bans the "friendly physician" model, and bars MSOs from controlling hiring, physician pay, schedules, coding, pricing and payer contracts.
  2. Form the entity with the Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division. Physicians usually form a professional corporation or other professional medical entity that is majority-owned and majority-governed by Oregon-licensed physicians, registered with the Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division.
  3. Get federal numbers. Apply for an EIN from the IRS, then a Type 2 NPI for the practice and Type 1 NPIs for each clinician through NPPES.
  4. Confirm licenses with the Oregon Medical Board. Every physician needs a Oregon license. Check the board’s rules for any practice registrations, supervision agreements or office requirements before opening.
  5. Check certificate of need and facility licensing. Oregon's CON program, run by the Oregon Health Authority, reviews hospitals, skilled nursing and intermediate care and long-term care facilities, new hospital services and certain bed increases.
  6. Register to prescribe. Register with the DEA for controlled substances and complete any Oregon controlled substance registration and prescription monitoring program enrollment. SB 951 also voids most noncompete agreements for physicians, NPs and PAs (with exceptions for owners) and limits nondisclosure and non-disparagement clauses, effective June 9, 2025.
  7. Set up lab, safety and privacy basics. Get a CLIA certificate if you will run any lab tests, including waived tests, and put HIPAA privacy and security and OSHA policies in place.
  8. Enroll with Medicare, Medicaid and insurers. Enroll in Medicare through PECOS, enroll with Oregon Health Plan (OHA) and start commercial credentialing early, because payer enrollment often takes months.
  9. Plan staffing around NP and PA rules. AANP classifies Oregon as full practice: NPs may evaluate, diagnose and prescribe under Board of Nursing licensure (O.R.S. 678.375) with no physician collaboration or transition-to-practice requirement listed.
  10. Launch your marketing before opening day. Claim your Google Business Profile, publish a website with online booking and start ads and content four to eight weeks before you open, so the schedule is not empty on day one.

The national steps are explained in more detail in our guide to how to start a medical clinic, and costs are broken down in how much it costs to start a clinic.

Marketing a new clinic in Oregon

New clinics usually fail on cash flow before they fail on care. The fastest fix is patients booked before opening day: a complete Google Business Profile, a website with online booking, local search ads and a few weeks of social content showing the team and the space. We run that launch for new clinics and keep it going once the doors open.

Plan your Oregon launch with us →

Important. This guide is general information checked against official and professional sources in October 2026. It is not legal advice. Rules change and details depend on your services, so confirm your plan with a healthcare attorney licensed in Oregon and with the agencies listed above.

Sources

  1. https://www.sidley.com/en/insights/newsupdates/2025/06/oregon-revises-corporate-practice-of-medicine-law
  2. https://www.reedsmith.com/articles/oregon-enacts-strict-new-corporate/
  3. https://sos.oregon.gov/business/Pages/default.aspx
  4. https://www.ncsl.org/health/certificate-of-need-state-laws
  5. https://www.oregon.gov/OHA/PH/ProviderPartnerResources/HealthcareProvidersFacilities/HealthcareHealthCareRegulationQualityImprovement/Pages/index.aspx
  6. https://storage.aanp.org/www/documents/no-index/state-fact-sheets/oregon.pdf
  7. https://www.oregon.gov/omb/Licensing/Pages/SP-PA-Collaborative-Practice.aspx
  8. https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_442.015
  9. https://www.oregon.gov/oha/PH/PROVIDERPARTNERRESOURCES/HEALTHCAREPROVIDERSFACILITIES/HEALTHCAREHEALTHCAREREGULATIONQUALITYIMPROVEMENT/Documents/ASCInitialLicensureAndCertificationGuidance.pdf
  10. https://www.oregon.gov/osbn/Documents/IS_IVHydrationTherapy.pdf
  11. https://www.oregon.gov/oha/HPA/HP/Pages/health-care-market-oversight.aspx
  12. https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_431A.877

Nearby state guides

WashingtonIdahoNevadaCaliforniaAll states
Oregon questions

Starting a clinic in Oregon, answered.

Can a non-physician own a medical clinic in Oregon?
Oregon has a strict corporate practice of medicine bar: medical practices must be majority-owned by Oregon-licensed physicians, and SB 951 (signed June 9, 2025) bars management services organizations and their insiders from owning or controlling the practice, bans the "friendly physician" model, and bars MSOs from controlling hiring, physician pay, schedules, coding, pricing and payer contracts. The MSO rules apply to new arrangements from January 1, 2026 and to existing ones from January 1, 2029, with exemptions for hospitals and hospital-owned clinics, PACE, some behavioral health programs and telemedicine entities with no Oregon physical presence.
Does Oregon require a certificate of need to open a clinic?
Oregon's CON program, run by the Oregon Health Authority, reviews hospitals, skilled nursing and intermediate care and long-term care facilities, new hospital services and certain bed increases. NCSL does not list ASCs or imaging as covered, so typical physician offices, ASCs and imaging centers do not need a CON.
Can nurse practitioners open their own practice in Oregon?
AANP classifies Oregon as full practice: NPs may evaluate, diagnose and prescribe under Board of Nursing licensure (O.R.S. 678.375) with no physician collaboration or transition-to-practice requirement listed.
Who can perform Botox, laser or IV therapy in Oregon?
A med spa that provides medical treatment is subject to Oregon's CPOM rules, so it generally needs to be owned by Oregon-licensed physicians, with any lay investment through an MSO that complies with SB 951. The Board of Nursing's October 2024 IV hydration interpretive statement says only physicians, PAs, APRNs with prescriptive privilege and naturopathic physicians with a prescribing endorsement may prescribe IV products, patients cannot self-select an IV "cocktail" from a menu, and RNs and LPNs act only on a prescriber's order within their individual scope.
Where do I register a medical practice in Oregon?
Physicians usually form a professional corporation or other professional medical entity that is majority-owned and majority-governed by Oregon-licensed physicians, registered with the Oregon Secretary of State Corporation Division. Lay investors generally participate only through an MSO that now must comply with SB 951.