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After graduating from FNP school I realized that becoming a nurse practitioner involves a lot of paperwork! Not just the paperwork from your notes in class, but to maintain your licensure and credentials once you are in practice.

It’s important to keep your paperwork in an organized fashion so you can easily find things when you need them, hence the binder. The first time I was introduced to the concept of a binder for organization of my nurse practitioner paper work was while I was in school.

I was close to graduating when I spoke to one of my co-workers who was in the Acute care NP program (now known as Adult-Gero and Acute Care). She told me her clinical director required each student in their class put together a binder with their resume, CMEs, and other important documents that would come in handy in the future.

I took the idea and put it to use myself and it’s saved me so much time and frustration over the years.

To get started you’ll need a 3-ring binder like this:

It doesn’t have to be fancy, but should be large enough to hold your important documents. My notebook is 1-inch, but a larger one won’t hurt if you think you need the room.

You’ll also need clear plastic inserts for your documents since you don’t want to put holes in them like this:

If you want to get super fancy you can get some page dividers to separate your paperwork and some art supplies to decorate your binder, but this is completely optional. The only things you really need are the folder and the clear plastic inserts.

Now its time to fill up your binder. Inside, you’ll keep documents that you need easy access to as a nurse practitioner such as:

• Resume
• CMEs
• Certificates
• License
• NPI number
• DEA
• Malpractice insurance policy
• Any other important career related documents

Use your binder when you need to access these important documents. Since you have them organized in one simple binder you’ll never have to search for your important nurse practitioner documents!

You can also use a binder to arrange all of your clinical resources that will help you in clinical practice. Membership to ReNursing Edu allows you access to our courses and downloadable resource guides. Use these resource guides for your clinical NP binder for a quick reference!

Do you have a nurse practitioner binder to keep all your important career-related documents? If so, do you keep anything else in it not listed here? Let me know with a comment below!

#Nursepractitioner #firstyearasnursepractitioner #organization