Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP)

Role Type: Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP)
Reports To: Director of Care Management for day-to-day workflow; clinical collaboration and governance through the Medical Director / collaborating physician.
Type: Full-Time, Permanent
Location: Hybrid
Salary: $130,000–$175,000 Annually (Commensurate with experience)

About Us
Essence Care Center (ECC) is a Chicago-based behavioral health and social care organization. Through our Social Care Center (SCC) service line, our fully remote team — nurse practitioners, licensed clinical social workers, care managers, and social care specialists — delivers telehealth-based behavioral health support, care coordination, resource navigation, and short-term bridge care, working alongside each patient's existing providers to remove barriers and close gaps in access.

About the Role
The Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner provides psychiatric assessment, diagnosis support, treatment planning, medication management, short-term stabilization/bridge support, and behavioral-health consultation within approved scope and privilege. This role must exercise disciplined prescribing judgment, maintain timely and complete documentation, and collaborate closely with behavioral-health staff, care managers, and psychiatry resources.

Core Responsibilities

• Conduct psychiatric and behavioral-health assessments, including diagnostic formulation and substance-use and risk evaluation within approved scope.
• Develop and implement treatment plans that may include medication management, symptom monitoring, counseling support, and specialty referral.
• Provide medication-management support and monitoring for psychiatric conditions, including side-effect review, adherence follow-up, and safety assessment.
• Coordinate with Family Nurse Practitioner, Behavioral Health Providers, Care Managers, primary-care staff, and psychiatry support on stabilization and transition plans.
• Perform suicide-risk, violence-risk, and other safety-related evaluations within role scope and organizational protocols.
• Escalate complex, refractory, higher-acuity, or specialty-level cases to psychiatry or the collaborating physician as required.
• Document psychiatric rationale, medical necessity, diagnosis support, prescribing decisions, risk factors, follow-up plans, and patient instructions using approved standards.
• Participate in case review, peer review, quality activities, and policy development related to behavioral-health care.
• Comply with credentialing, privileging, payer enrollment, CAQH maintenance, re-credentialing, and billing-readiness requirements needed for practice and reimbursement.
• Maintain scope discipline regarding controlled substances, consultation thresholds, and specialty escalation.
• Communicate and coordinate with the patient's psychiatrist, specialists, and other treating providers when coordination is required.
• Meet with the collaborating physician as needed or as required under the applicable Illinois written collaborative agreement or full-practice-authority rules
  

Required qualifications

• Active Illinois APRN license, active Illinois RN license, and national board certification appropriate to psychiatric-mental-health scope.
• DEA registration and Illinois controlled-substance authority if required for assigned duties.
• Experience with behavioral-health, substance-use, crisis-sensitive, or integrated-care populations.
• Ability to practice within applicable Illinois collaboration or full-practice-authority requirements as they apply to the specific setting and clinician status.
• Strong psychiatric documentation, medication-management, and interdisciplinary collaboration skills.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in community mental health, FQHC, safety-net, managed-care, or integrated primary / behavioral-health settings.
• Experience serving medically and socially complex populations and coordinating with psychiatry resources.

Licensure, credentialing, and compliance requirements
Must maintain active Illinois APRN licensure, active Illinois RN licensure, national certification appropriate to psychiatric-mental-health scope, and all registrations required for psychiatric practice, including federal DEA and Illinois controlled-substance authority when applicable. Practice authority must remain consistent with Illinois law and organizational policy, including a written collaborative agreement with the collaborating physician (or documented full practice authority) and granted privileges. The individual must remain in good standing through credentialing, privileging, payer enrollment, CAQH maintenance, peer review, required training, and re-credentialing cycles. Pre-hire and monthly thereafter, the individual is screened against the HHS-OIG List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE), the SAM.gov exclusion list, and the Illinois HFS/OIG Medicaid provider sanctions list; an active exclusion disqualifies employment or continued service. Because this is a remote telehealth position, the individual must hold active, unrestricted licensure in each U.S. jurisdiction where a patient is physically located at the time of service (Illinois for Illinois-based services); serving patients located in additional states requires licensure in those states before care is delivered. Controlled-substance prescribing via telehealth must comply with the DEA telemedicine framework then in effect. As of this draft, DEA-registered practitioners may prescribe Schedule II–V controlled substances via audio-video telemedicine without a prior in-person evaluation under the Fourth Temporary Extension of COVID-19 telemedicine flexibilities (through December 31, 2026), together with the buprenorphine (21 CFR 1306.51) and VA-continuity (21 CFR 1306.52) final rules and any successor or permanent rule (e.g., a future Special Registration for Telemedicine), plus Illinois controlled-substance registration and Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) requirements. Where the individual accesses or discloses substance use disorder treatment records, 42 CFR Part 2 applies in addition to HIPAA.

Work environment and physical / remote requirements
Fully remote telehealth clinical role in an interdisciplinary behavioral-health model, with direct patient interaction by video and telephone, record review, and prescribing-related documentation. Requires a private, secure, HIPAA-compliant workspace, reliable high-speed internet, use of approved telehealth and electronic health record platforms, prolonged periods of screen use, and the ability to respond to urgent behavioral-health issues. Occasional travel may be required for meetings, training, or credentialing.

Equal Employment Opportunity
ECC is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on any basis protected by federal, Illinois, or local law. Employment is at-will. ECC provides reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities; candidates who need an accommodation to perform the essential functions of this role should contact Human Resources.