NHA CEHRS exam requirements

For the standard NHA CEHRS exam requirements, you need two things: a high school diploma or a recognized equivalent (or an exam date no more than 12 months before your expected graduation), plus one qualifying route — recent training, a registered apprenticeship, U.S. military medical training, an employer-training or pre-externship arrangement, or supervised work experience in the field. Candidates testing before graduation must meet the other eligibility conditions; passing then leads to provisional rather than full certification. Sources: NHA eligibility requirements and provisional-certification rules.

The six eligibility routes

These routes concern the National Healthcareer Association (NHA) Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist (CEHRS) exam in the United States.

Find the row that describes you. You only need one route, not all of them, in addition to the education requirement. NHA groups rows 1–5 under its training pathway and row 6 under its work-experience pathway; the separate instructor route appears below.

At the five-year boundary: the handbook's eligibility section excludes training completed five years or more before registration. Do not treat the fifth anniversary as an extra eligible day under the training pathway.

Source: NHA Candidate Handbook, Eligibility Requirements, pp. 6–8, updated June 1, 2026. The "records to have ready" column is our preparation advice, not a list NHA asks you to upload at checkout.

A high school diploma alone does not meet the standard CEHRS eligibility requirements. The CEHRS is not an open-entry exam. If you're starting from zero, your realistic path is a training program at an accredited or state-recognized provider. Check that it meets NHA's published training criteria rather than relying on a provider's marketing label.

What counts for the education requirement

A high school diploma, a GED, or another equivalency test your state recognizes. NHA also accepts a diploma and official transcript showing equivalent education. If your documents aren't in English, you need to be able to produce a translation from a U.S.-approved legal or government translation service on request. NHA lists these education requirements on page 6 of its handbook.

Two details worth knowing. This is a secondary education requirement — no college degree is involved. And if you're using foreign secondary credentials, NHA's help-center summary says those documents should be evaluated by AACRAO, while the handbook's general clause doesn't name an evaluator. Ask NHA which evaluation it wants before you pay for one.

Four things people get wrong here

• Routes 4 and 5 aren't something you can set up yourself. They depend on an agreement your employer or school already has with NHA. Confirm the agreement with your employer or school before relying on either route.
• The five-year clock runs to the day you register, not your test date. The handbook says training completed "five years or more" before registration closes route 1 — so exactly five years is already too late. Use route 6 instead only if you meet its supervised-work requirements.
• Your experience has to be supervised and in this field. General office work isn't enough. Match your actual duties to the exam's subject matter, not your job title.
• Attesting is not the same as nobody checking. More on that below.

Do you have to be 18 to take the CEHRS exam?

No. NHA's Candidate Handbook sets an education requirement and a route requirement. It does not publish a standalone minimum age for CEHRS, and it has a provisional path built specifically for candidates who haven't graduated yet.

Keep the scope straight, though: this is a statement about NHA's published eligibility rules, not your school's admission conditions or permission to work in a particular state. Check any separate school or testing-site conditions before registering. Sources: NHA eligibility and provisional-certification sections, pp. 6–12.

Testing before you graduate: provisional certification

If you're scheduled to graduate from an accredited high school, a GED program, or another recognized equivalency program, you can take the exam up to 12 months before you graduate and, if you pass and meet the other eligibility requirements, receive a Provisional Certification.

It's a placeholder, not a shortcut, and it comes with four conditions:

• It expires 12 months after your exam date.
• It cannot be renewed or reinstated. If it lapses before you convert it, you retake the exam.
• Your certification number carries a "P" while it's provisional — so anyone verifying you can see it.
• Once converted, your expiration date is based on your original test date. Converting doesn't restart your clock, and normal continuing-education rules then apply.

The practical instruction: schedule the exam for a date no more than 12 months before your expected graduation, and apply to convert as soon as you have the required proof.

Sources: NHA Candidate Handbook p. 11 and pp. 37–38; NHA help-center article on testing during high school or a GED program.

Converting after graduation

NHA's published conversion instructions use email or fax. Log into your account, open My Achievements, write down your certification number, then collect one graduation document. The handbook also requires a letter with your name, current postal address, current email address, and provisional certification number or a copy of the certificate, plus written proof that you met the training or work-experience requirement.

NHA lists these as acceptable:

• A transcript from the high school
• An unofficial transcript that shows the graduation date
• A copy of the high school diploma
• GED test scores or certificate
• An affidavit from the school confirming graduation

Two traps here. College transcripts are not accepted as proof of graduation for this conversion. And no graduation document extends the provisional certification's 12-month deadline: once it lapses, the handbook requires retesting rather than renewal or reinstatement.

Send the materials to NHA at info@nhanow.com or fax 913-661-6291. NHA's help article states that confirmation of the two-year certification appears in your account within 2–3 business days. That processing estimate does not extend your provisional deadline.

Sources: NHA Candidate Handbook, Converting Provisional Certification to Full Certification, p. 38; How to Update a Provisional Certification, Steps 3–6.

If your coursework is done but your externship or on-the-job training isn't

This is where people confuse two different things: permission to test and release of your certification.

Under routes 4 and 5, you're allowed to sit the exam early — but if you pass, no certificate number is assigned and your credential isn't released to you, your employer, or any regulatory body until the remaining requirement is finished and reported to NHA. Miss the deadline and NHA voids the score, and you have to retake the exam.

The deadlines are: 180 days from your exam date for employer-based on-the-job training, and 90 days for a school externship. The 90-day rule covers finishing the externship, getting all completion paperwork to your school, and having the school notify NHA — not just finishing your last shift.

So if you're in this situation, get three answers in writing before test day:

1. Does my employer's or school's NHA agreement actually cover CEHRS?
2. What exactly is still outstanding?
3. Who submits the completion notice to NHA, and by when?

Source: NHA Candidate Handbook, Eligibility Requirements, Pathway 1(d) and 1(e).

The instructor route

Instructors at an NHA-associated institution have a separate route. You need a teaching qualification — a current state-recognized teaching certificate or licence, or at least three years of full-time teaching in a health care or health science field — and a health care background, meaning current licensure, certification or registration as a health care professional, or at least two years of work experience in this field or a discipline whose scope equals or exceeds it. Program-specific requirements still apply; the handbook does not list an additional practical-procedure quota for CEHRS.

Three restrictions catch people:

• Register individually. Don't associate yourself with your institution when you register.
• Test at a PSI center or by live remote proctoring. You may not test at your own institution under any circumstance.
• You can't sit an exam you proctored in the previous six months, and once you've registered you can't proctor that exam until you're certified.

Source: NHA Candidate Handbook, Eligibility Requirements for Instructors (p. 10).

What if none of the routes fit?

There's a formal door rather than a dead end. You can file an Eligibility Exception Request with supporting documentation. NHA's Disciplinary & Appeals Committee decides it, and you can ask the Certification Governing Board to reconsider. Decisions come in writing, and Board decisions are final.

Be realistic about timing: reconsideration by the Board waits until its next scheduled meeting, and the Board meets roughly three times a year. That is not a published turnaround time for the initial committee decision. An appeal of that decision must reach NHA within 30 days of the date on the decision letter. Don't book a test date assuming an exception will land first.

Use NHA's support page to obtain the appropriate Eligibility Exception Request/Appeals form and submission instructions. An exception request is not permission to attest that you already meet a requirement you do not meet.

Source: NHA Candidate Handbook, Eligibility Exception Requests (p. 12) and Appeals (pp. 41–42).

What to have ready before you apply

Eight checks to help avoid two expensive mistakes: applying under a route you can't document, and paying for a seat you then can't use. Nothing here is submitted to us — this is your own prep list.

• □ 1. I've selected CEHRS, not another NHA exam. (NHA offers eight; several have similar names.)
• □ 2. I know whether I'm applying individually or through my school or employer, and my account's organization type matches.
• □ 3. I've identified one route from the table above, or the separate instructor route, and can point to the handbook section that covers it.
• □ 4. I have the dates and details behind that route written down — completion dates, employment dates, actual duties — not just a course name or job title.
• □ 5. If I haven't graduated yet, I know my exam date is within 12 months before my expected graduation, and I know which graduation document and training or work-experience proof I'll use to convert.
• □ 6. My government-issued photo ID is current, and the name on it matches my registration exactly (PSI requires an exact match).
• □ 7. If I need testing accommodations, I know they must be requested after I register and approved before I book a third-party appointment.
• □ 8. I know where I'll save my application and appointment confirmations, and I have any written instructions about requirements still outstanding.

Checking every box is not eligibility approval. NHA decides eligibility. The checklist draws on NHA's registration requirements, identification rules, and accommodation instructions.

How to apply and schedule

For third-party testing, applying to NHA and booking your seat are two separate steps. Paying NHA does not by itself book a PSI appointment. An institution-administered exam follows a different path: you select an available school or employer exam date during the institution's application process.

1. Apply in your NHA account. Create your own candidate profile — parents, teachers, school officials and sponsors are not permitted to register on your behalf, and the first thing you attest to says exactly that. If you already have an NHA profile, log into it rather than creating another. Use a personal email address rather than a school or work one, so NHA can still reach you later.
2. Read the attestation before you agree to it. You're confirming your education, your route, and that you've read the Candidate Handbook. You're bound by what you attest to. For an institution-administered exam, choose the offered exam date and meet the institution's registration deadline.
3. Complete payment and any required roster approval. Unless a school or employer is paying, payment is due at application and you have a two-hour window to finish it — if that window closes, the application is voided and you start over. For an institution-linked PSI application, wait for any required school approval before scheduling.
4. Use the scheduling path for your testing arrangement. If your account lists an unscheduled PSI application, open it and choose your date, time and format. If NHA assigns another live remote proctoring provider, follow that provider's instructions in your account. If your exam is being administered by your institution, follow its exam-date confirmation instead of making a separate PSI appointment. Need accommodations? Complete NHA registration, submit the request, and wait for approval and Compliance's special instructions before booking a third-party appointment.

For PSI or remote-proctored appointments, the handbook requires cancellation or rescheduling at least 24 hours before the scheduled time to avoid forfeiting the fee. Make changes earlier rather than leaving them to the cutoff. Institution-administered rescheduling must be requested before the exam starts and is at the institution's discretion. The handbook permits a replacement date within six months of the original exam date without a new payment, subject to those cancellation rules.

Sources: NHA Candidate Handbook, pp. 13–21; Applying for an NHA Exam through your institution; How to Schedule an Exam with PSI; accommodation scheduling instructions.

Attesting isn't the same as nobody checking

NHA reserves the right to audit attestation responses. If a false attestation turns up before the exam, you can be refused the seat with no refund. If it turns up after, NHA can invalidate the score, withhold or revoke the credential, and — at its own discretion — decide you're ineligible to retake that exam or any other NHA exam.

That's the whole reason the route table has a "records" column. Pick your route on purpose, and be able to back it up. Source: NHA Candidate Handbook, false-attestation policy, p. 28.

If you need testing accommodations

The sequence matters: a request submitted after you book a third-party appointment can leave you needing to reschedule.

Register first. Then request accommodations. Then, if you're testing with PSI, wait for approval and NHA's scheduling instructions before booking a date. NHA states plainly that third-party testing candidates should not schedule a date and time until the accommodation is approved and its Compliance team has sent special instructions.

The rest of what's worth knowing:

• NHA recommends submitting at least 30 days before your intended exam date. It aims to review requests within about two weeks, but that is not a guaranteed turnaround.
• Documentation is either a complete Individualized Education Program (IEP) or Section 504 plan containing the required information, or a letter from an objective qualified professional — on letterhead, signed and dated, naming the diagnosis, explaining how it affects testing under standard conditions, and specifying the accommodations needed. The handbook requires a high-school IEP to be active or to have been in place at graduation. A mental or emotional diagnosis needs a DSM classification code. The professional can't be you or a relative. For a temporary condition, include the first diagnosis date, approximate duration, and method used to diagnose it. NHA prefers documentation issued within the last five years, but older paperwork may be submitted for review.
• Your school's disability office approval does not transfer. Proctors and schools have no authority to add time to an NHA exam. It has to go through NHA Compliance.
• For PSI testing, if your approved accommodations include anything other than extended time, you must test on-site at a PSI center — live remote proctoring is not available to you. This does not mean every accommodated candidate must leave their school: NHA also describes approval and administration through an institution.
• An approval lasts a full year and is applied automatically to other exams in that window, unless it was for a temporary condition.
• If you change where you test — say, from your school to a PSI center — you must tell NHA Compliance in writing, or the accommodations won't follow you.

Sources: NHA, Does NHA provide special accommodations?; NHA Candidate Handbook, Accommodation Request (pp. 21–23).

Key CEHRS deadlines in one place

These rules are scattered across the handbook and NHA's help-center articles. Here they are in the order they reach you.

Before you register or choose a test date

At registration and on test day

After you test

If you don't pass

At minimum spacing, the first three attempts span 60 days from the first attempt to the third: 30 days plus 30 days. That's our arithmetic from NHA's rule, not a promise that appointments will be available. Every attempt costs the full fee.

For an eligibility-exception appeal, the separate deadline is 30 days from the date of the committee's decision letter, not from your exam date.

Sources: NHA Candidate Handbook, updated June 1, 2026 — eligibility (pp. 6–11), payment (p. 15), rescheduling (p. 21), testing conduct (pp. 25–26), preliminary results (p. 32), retakes and challenges (p. 34), and exception appeals (p. 42); accommodation guidance; provisional-conversion instructions.

What you need on test day

A current government-issued photo ID. At a PSI center, the name on it has to match your registration exactly — this catches people who register under a maiden name, a nickname, or a shortened first name. The handbook adds that your ID should show your photo, your signature and a permanent address, and that if the address differs from what you gave at registration you'll need proof of address, such as a current utility bill matching the ID.

Apart from the equipment required to take the exam and items specifically approved through NHA's accommodation process, the prohibited personal-device list includes phones, extra laptops or tablets, e-readers, cameras, MP3 players, pagers, radios, watches, AI glasses, earbuds, earphones, electronic translators, and calculators. No reference books for CEHRS.

On calculators, two NHA pages read differently. The handbook says candidates may use the built-in exam calculator; NHA's testing-site page says calculators are permitted for the ExCPT pharmacy exam only. Personal calculators are prohibited either way. The general handbook wording is not confirmation that a calculator will appear in your CEHRS exam; use NHA's instructions for your scheduled exam.

Scratch materials are provided: two sheets of paper and a writing instrument at an institution, a whiteboard and marker at a PSI center, a digital whiteboard for remote testing. Physical scratch materials must be returned as instructed.

For remote testing, your computer and internet connection must meet the assigned provider's system requirements. Complete the provider's compatibility check before your appointment; an eligible candidate can still have an incompatible testing setup. NHA describes this requirement in its remote-testing instructions on page 14.

One venue rule deserves its own line: with live remote proctoring there are no breaks at all, you can't leave the room, and nobody else may be in the room at any time. At in-person sites a proctor may allow a break only if they judge it necessary, one candidate at a time — and the time comes out of your exam.

Sources: NHA, What do I need to bring to the testing site?; NHA Candidate Handbook, Security at Authorized Locations and Testing Rules of Conduct (pp. 25–27).

Where NHA's summaries need a closer look

Use the detailed eligibility section of the Candidate Handbook for the standard eligibility rules, then the relevant NHA help article for the application procedure. A short summary or a screening question does not replace the full conditions.

Sources checked September 11, 2026: NHA general eligibility help, the published CEHRS questions on Check Your Eligibility, and the Candidate Handbook, pp. 8, 14 and 16. The screen comparison concerns its published question text, not a test of every possible interactive result. Report a correction.

Does CEHRS let you work in your state?

CEHRS is a certification, not a licence. NHA says directly that its eligibility requirements are separate and distinct from any state's requirements to practise, that those laws vary, and that holding an NHA certification does not guarantee you meet a state's regulatory requirements. Its own advice is to find the oversight body for your field in the state where you plan to work and check with it.

We're not going to pretend there's a fifty-state answer here. Read the job posting, and check the state body if one exists for the role.

Source: NHA Candidate Handbook, State Licensing Eligibility Requirements (p. 12).

After you pass: what keeps it alive

A standard CEHRS certification lasts two years from its issue date. Renewing takes 10 continuing education credits in each two-year cycle plus NHA's recertification fee. For qualifying continuing-education attendance, NHA counts two hours as one credit, so 10 credits corresponds to 20 hours under that conversion. Unused credits don't carry over.

Renew before the expiration date shown in your account. The handbook describes a one-month grace period; NHA's renewal page describes ordinary renewal without additional fees when a credential has been expired for less than 30 days. Do not treat either description as an extension of the credential's expiration date.

After the grace period, reinstatement within one year of expiration requires 15 credits plus the recertification and reinstatement fees. After a year, you re-register and retake the exam. Provisional certifications sit outside all of this — they convert or they expire.

Current fee amounts are on NHA's renewal page. Rules from the Candidate Handbook, Maintaining your Certification (pp. 36–38).

Common questions

How much does the CEHRS exam cost?

NHA charges a fee for each attempt. Check the amount in your official NHA application before paying; when your school or employer arranges the exam, confirm whether it pays the fee on your behalf. Budget for the full exam fee on any retake. NHA's Candidate Handbook, pp. 5, 15 and 34, explains the fee and payment rules; its application instructions show where payment information enters the process.

Where do I check my eligibility officially?

NHA has a Check Your Eligibility tool and, for anything unusual, a support page. Use the tool as a screen, not a verdict — its standard CEHRS work-experience question does not represent every published route. For a question about your own records, identify the relevant handbook pathway when you contact NHA.

Sources and what we checked

Last verified: September 11, 2026 — the published NHA eligibility and process rules cited below.

• Candidate Handbook, updated June 1, 2026 — eligibility, instructor and conditional routes, provisional certification, registration, attestations, accommodations, test-day rules, results, retakes, appeals, and renewal.
• General eligibility requirements and the published CEHRS question text on Check Your Eligibility.
• Testing during high school or a GED program and How to Update a Provisional Certification.
• Applying for an NHA Exam through your institution and How to Schedule an Exam with PSI.
• Special accommodations, testing-site identification and calculator rules, and renewal and reinstatement.

Written by the Castleport Test Prep Editorial Team, with AI assistance. Source checking is not professional review. Read our editorial standards or report a correction.

Castleport Test Prep is an independent exam prep publisher. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by the National Healthcareer Association. Exam and credential names identify their subjects; trademarks belong to their respective owners. NHA determines certification eligibility, and state requirements must be checked separately.