Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP)

Essence Community Care•Chicago, IL

2d•$130,000 - $175,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) provides psychiatric assessment, diagnosis support, treatment planning, medication management, short-term stabilization/bridge support, and behavioral-health consultation within their approved scope and privilege. This role requires disciplined prescribing judgment, timely and complete documentation, and close collaboration with behavioral-health staff, care managers, and psychiatry resources. The position is a full-time, permanent, hybrid role based in Chicago, working within Essence Care Center's (ECC) Social Care Center (SCC) service line, which delivers telehealth-based behavioral health support, care coordination, resource navigation, and short-term bridge care.

Requirements

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.
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.
Where the individual accesses or discloses substance use disorder treatment records, 42 CFR Part 2 applies in addition to HIPAA.

Nice To Haves

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.

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.