Certification Process Overview

Initial Certification

If you graduate from a physician assistant program accredited by the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) or its predecessors, you can take the Physician Assistant National Certifying Examination (PANCE) for certification. The 360 multiple-choice exam assesses basic medical and surgical knowledge. You will need to submit an application and payment in advance and can choose from over 200 testing sites.

After passing PANCE, physician assistants are issued NCCPA certification and can use the PA-C designation until the certification expiration date (approximately two years).

Read NCCPA's Code of Conduct for Certified and Certifying PAs, which explains the ethics and professionalism expected of all PAs seeking or holding NCCPA certification.

Certification Maintenance

The six-year certification maintenance cycle is divided into three two-year periods. During every two-year period, PA-C designees must earn and log a minimum of 100 hours of CME and submit a certification maintenance fee to NCCPA by December 31 of their certification expiration year. Or you can save $50 by submitting your CME hours and fee by June 30 of your certification expiration year. You can begin earning CME hours on May 1 of your certification cycle year and must finish earning them by December 31 of the year your certification expires. The only exception to this policy is for first-time loggers.

First time loggers may have a one-time extension if certification was issued after June 30. Read more at the CME section of this Web site.

By the end of the sixth year of the certification maintenance cycle, PA-C designees must have also passed a recertification exam. Offered at testing centers throughout the U.S., the multiple choice Physician Assistant National Recertifying Exam (PANRE) is designed to assess general medical and surgical knowledge.

NCCPA also offers an alternative to the traditional PANRE, the Pathway II, a Web-based, take-at-home examination. Physician assistants electing to take this "open book" exam are encouraged to use reference materials as needed to complete it. However, to be eligible for the take-home exam, PAs must meet an additional requirement - the accumulation of 100 elective component points. Read more about the elective component.

PAs who fail to maintain their certification must take and pass PANCE, PANRE or Pathway II, to regain it. (Other eligibility requirements will apply.)

Following the completion of the six year requirements, the certification maintenance process begins again.