What shapes the cost of your Southeastern preceptor placement
Every Southeastern Louisiana University placement is quoted on its own, because five things change the work behind it: the course, how scarce preceptors are in its population, where in Louisiana you live, how much time is left before the semester, and how many courses you want covered. What you owe Southeastern for tuition, laboratory fees and compliance is a separate matter, set by the university and its vendors.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Southeastern program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options in your community that fit your Southeastern course.
A quote built from your course
Your quote starts with the course in front of you, because Southeastern's clinical courses ask for very different preceptors. NURS 6820 Family Health I asks for pediatric patients and child-bearing women in the same semester. NURS 6830 and NURS 6840 move to adults and then adults with older patients. The psychiatric sequence runs from early diagnostic work in NURS 6910 to a child and adolescent emphasis in NURS 6920 and an older adult emphasis in NURS 6930. A 275-hour course also needs a practice with room for more of your time than a 200-hour one.
The quote spells out what it includes: the search, the fit check against Southeastern's and Louisiana's rules, the facility's agreement status, the details course faculty need, and support through the semester, with a new search if a preceptor withdraws. Nursing Education practicums and DNP residency sites are quoted the same way, around their own hours and settings.
Scarce specialties take the longest search
The population a course needs is the largest single factor. Pediatric and women's health preceptors for the first Family Health course top the list. In Hammond, North Oaks Health System says it offers no pediatric clinical rotations, according to an archived copy of its student page, so Northshore FNP students often turn to independent pediatric and family practices.
Child and adolescent psychiatry for NURS 6920 is the other hard case. Louisiana wants most of a PMHNP student's hours with a psychiatric-mental health NP, and HRSA lists Tangipahoa, Livingston, Washington and St. Helena parishes as mental health shortage areas, so fewer clinicians serve more patients. Louisiana also limits each preceptor to a pair of graduate APRN students at a time, whatever their school, so sought-after preceptors fill early.
Adult primary care and general adult psychiatry usually offer a wider field. Family Health I shows why that first FNP course is the hardest to place.
Your parish and your drive
All MSN and PMHNP certificate clinical hours stay in Louisiana, so the search runs inside the state and starts from your home parish. Metro areas such as Baton Rouge, the Northshore and greater New Orleans hold more practices, though those practices also hear from many nursing programs. Rural parishes have fewer clinicians to ask, and under the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2023 codes, 27 of Louisiana's 64 parishes are nonmetro.
How far you will drive changes the picture quickly. A Hammond student open to Covington or Baton Rouge has far more options than one who needs a site within a few miles of home. Give us your parish and a realistic radius, and the quote reflects the search that implies. Louisiana regions describes each part of the state.
How much time is left before the semester
Timing matters because several steps after the search run on their own clocks. The consortium handbook says a facility without a current agreement with the university may need several weeks to months to get one. Course faculty set the date by which they need your preceptor, and Southeastern publishes that date nowhere public, so ask early.
A request made a semester or more ahead lets the search follow its normal course, with time to line up a backup. A request made with the course days away, or mid-semester after a preceptor leaves, packs the same work into far less time, and the quote reflects that. Planning against the academic calendar keeps both the work and the quote predictable.
The costliest mistake is waiting for faculty to ask for a name. By then a new facility agreement may already be too slow for the semester.
One course or your whole sequence
You can ask for one course or for every precepted course in your plan. Planning the full FNP or PMHNP sequence together lets us look for practices that could serve more than one course, such as a family practice seeing both adults and older patients for NURS 6830 and NURS 6840, and lets the next search begin while you finish the current course.
Faculty still approve preceptors course by course, even one you worked with before, and your quote names exactly which courses it covers. DNP students can add residency sites for NURS 8210 through NURS 8230 to their NP courses. How it works walks through the sequence from first request to final course.
Southeastern's own costs are separate
What you pay Southeastern and its vendors sits entirely outside our quote. The 2026-27 catalog, the consortium handbook and the DNP pages name these costs without printing amounts:
- Tuition, a professional fee each semester of coursework, and fees for proctored testing in online courses
- A laboratory fee on every FNP and PMHNP clinical course
- A clinical tracking system subscription, kept through your NP practicum courses
- Background screening plus drug and alcohol testing, paid by you, with Certified Background named on the current DNP page
- Any extra background check a clinical agency requires, plus CPR and health requirements
- Travel to Hammond for DNP orientation and the project defense, or for the post-master's certificate orientation
Ask Southeastern for current amounts. Compliance requirements explains each screening item, and when you are ready, request your own quote on the contact page.
Questions Southeastern students ask
Why is each placement quoted individually?
The work varies too much for one price to fit. A pediatric preceptor for Family Health I in a rural parish, requested weeks before the semester, takes far more searching than an adult primary care placement near Baton Rouge planned months ahead. An individual quote matches the price to your course, location and timing, and lists what it covers.
Does Southeastern's clinical laboratory fee pay for finding a preceptor?
The catalog attaches a laboratory fee to each FNP and PMHNP clinical course without printing the amount or saying what it funds. Southeastern's published process leaves the choice of preceptor to graduate students, working with course faculty. The laboratory fee is billed by Southeastern and is separate from our quote; ask the Graduate Nursing Office what it covers.
Does Southeastern allow students to use a placement service?
Southeastern and the consortium publish no rule on placement services either way. Their requirements apply however a preceptor is found: course faculty approval, the graduate coordinator's review, a current facility agreement and a Louisiana-licensed preceptor. Everything our placement desk arranges is built to meet those same checks.
What happens to my placement if my preceptor quits mid-semester?
Tell your course faculty member first, because a replacement goes through the same approval before its hours count. Support through the semester is part of our service, and your placement advisor starts looking again once you tell us. Your quote states how a replacement is handled, so read that part before you begin.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Southeastern's own catalog, program pages and consortium handbook, and Louisiana rules. Your course faculty, the graduate coordinator and your advisor have the final word.
Southeastern asks you to choose your preceptor. We find one near you.
Tell us your Southeastern track, where in Louisiana you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find Louisiana-licensed preceptors who fit the course, confirm whether the facility is already under contract with the university, and hand you what your course faculty need to approve it before the semester.
- Pediatric and women's health preceptors for
NURS 6820, adult and older-adult primary care forNURS 6830andNURS 6840 - Psychiatric preceptors for
NURS 6910toNURS 6930, with the child and older-adult focus each course sets - Across Louisiana, from the Northshore to Shreveport
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.