South Dakota Physician Assistant license renewal and CE requirements

Summary

South Dakota physician assistants must complete 30 contact hours of continuing education every year to renew their license with the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners. A physician assistant license must be renewed every year on a date set by the board. The renewal opens in the licensee's online MySD account 90 days before the license expires, and a license that is not renewed is suspended, though it can be reinstated within the following twelve months by application plus the renewal and reinstatement fees. The board does not publish a single statewide expiration date, so check the expiration date printed on your own license.

South Dakota Physician Assistant renewal and continuing education rules

"Not stated" means the board's pages and rules we read do not address it. We do not fill in typical values.

SDCL 36-4A-31 requires a physician assistant, at each annual renewal, to submit evidence satisfactory to the board of the completion during the preceding twelve months of at least thirty hours of post graduate studies approved by the board. The same section then states that a physician assistant may document compliance with that requirement by providing proof of current NCCPA certification, so an NCCPA certified physician assistant does not count state hours separately. The statute uses the phrase post graduate studies approved by the board rather than naming a credit system such as AMA PRA Category 1, and no category split, live hour minimum or self study cap is stated. The requirement is annual, so it is thirty hours in each twelve month renewal period rather than thirty per two years.

Required CE topics for South Dakota physician assistants

The South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners pages and rules we read do not mandate specific subject areas for this license type. Hours may be in any approved subject.

Documentation and audit

Common questions

How many CE hours does a South Dakota PA need to renew?

South Dakota physician assistants must complete 30 contact hours of continuing education every year to renew their license with the South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners. SDCL 36-4A-31 requires a physician assistant, at each annual renewal, to submit evidence satisfactory to the board of the completion during the preceding twelve months of at least thirty hours of post graduate studies approved by the board. The same section then states that a physician assistant may document compliance with that requirement by providing proof of current NCCPA certification, so an NCCPA certified physician assistant does not count state hours separately. The statute uses the phrase post graduate studies approved by the board rather than naming a credit system such as AMA PRA Category 1, and no category split, live hour minimum or self study cap is stated. The requirement is annual, so it is thirty hours in each twelve month renewal period rather than thirty per two years.

How often does a South Dakota PA license need to be renewed?

Physician Assistant licenses in South Dakota renew every year. A physician assistant license must be renewed every year on a date set by the board. The renewal opens in the licensee's online MySD account 90 days before the license expires, and a license that is not renewed is suspended, though it can be reinstated within the following twelve months by application plus the renewal and reinstatement fees. The board does not publish a single statewide expiration date, so check the expiration date printed on your own license.

Does South Dakota require specific CE topics for physician assistants?

The South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners does not list mandated subject areas for PA renewal on the pages we verified; the 30 contact hours may be in any approved subject.

Do South Dakota physician assistants have to submit CE certificates at renewal?

Proof of completion must be submitted with the renewal. Post graduate studies must be approved by the board. The statute names no accrediting body, and current NCCPA certification is accepted as documentation of compliance.

Sources

Last verified September 8, 2026. Every value above was read from one of these.

• SDCL 36-4A-31, License renewal, requirements (physician assistants)Statute or administrative rule, accessed September 8, 2026
• SDCL 36-4A-33, Suspension of license not renewed, reinstatementStatute or administrative rule, accessed September 8, 2026
• Physician Assistant, South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic ExaminersState board page, accessed September 8, 2026
• FAQs, South Dakota Board of Medical and Osteopathic ExaminersState board page, accessed September 8, 2026
• ARSD 20:78:03, Application procedures, Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners (Sections 20:78:03.01 and 20:78:03:10)Statute or administrative rule, accessed September 8, 2026

South Dakota regulates physician assistants through the Board of Medical and Osteopathic Examiners, the same board that licenses physicians, with a physician assistant council advising it under SDCL 36-4A-3.1; there is no separate physician assistant board. The relationship to the physician requirement is not one of layering: physicians in South Dakota face no state continuing education mandate at all, while physician assistants owe thirty hours a year, so the physician assistant requirement is heavier and entirely its own. Two cautions. First, the board's physician assistant page cites SDCL 36-4A-32 as the source of the thirty hour rule, but 36-4A-32 has been repealed; the operative section is 36-4A-31, as amended by SL 2025, ch 149, section 16, and that is what is recorded here. Second, the renewal date is genuinely not published: SDCL 36-4A-31 says the license is renewed annually on a date set by the board, ARSD 20:78:03:10 says only that renewals follow the same process as original licenses, and neither the board's physician assistant page nor its FAQ names a month and day, so the basis is left unknown rather than guessed. Several third party sites describe South Dakota physician assistant renewal as biennial, which contradicts the plain text of the statute; the statute is followed here and the third party pages are not cited. No mandatory continuing education subject was found for physician assistants in the statute or the board rules. The pages at sdlegislature.gov are JavaScript rendered and return only a loading shell to a plain fetch; the statute and rule text quoted here was read through the same site's public JSON API for those identical citations.