- Who Issues the CMGT-BC and What It Is
- The Four Eligibility Requirements
- Counting Practice Hours and CE the Right Way
- Critical: The Program Phaseout and Your Deadlines
- Application, Fees, and Authorization to Test
- What You Qualify to Sit For: Exam Format
- Using the Four Domains to Plan Your Prep
- Retesting Rules If You Don't Pass
- After You Qualify: Five-Year Cycle and Renewal
- Frequently Asked Questions
- You need an active RN license, two full-time-equivalent RN years, 2,000 case management practice hours, and 30 specialty CE hours.
- The 2,000 practice hours and 30 CE hours must both fall within the last three years.
- Initial applications close December 31, 2026; the exam and retesting end December 31, 2027.
- The initial fee is $395 nonmember or $295 ANA member, including a $140 nonrefundable administrative fee.
Who Issues the CMGT-BC and What It Is
The CMGT-BC is the Nursing Case Management Certification offered by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), part of the American Nurses Association enterprise. Passing earns the designation Case Management Nurse - Board Certified (CMGT-BC). It is a registered-nurse-only credential, built around the nursing scope of case management rather than a multi-discipline case management scope. If you are still orienting yourself, our explainers on what CMGT-BC certification is and what CMGT-BC stands for cover the basics.
This article focuses on the gate in front of the exam: who is allowed to apply, what evidence you need, and how the timing of the program's phaseout affects your plan. If you are weighing whether to apply at all, read the ROI analysis alongside this piece.
The Four Eligibility Requirements
ANCC sets four requirements for initial certification. All four must be satisfied before you are approved to test.
1. Current, Active RN Licensure
You must hold a current, active registered nurse license, or an accepted international equivalent. A lapsed, inactive, or restricted license is a common reason applications stall, so verify your license status with your state board before you begin.
2. Two Full-Time-Equivalent Years as an RN
You need the equivalent of two years of full-time work as a registered nurse. "Full-time equivalent" means part-time and per-diem work can count, as long as the total adds up to the equivalent of two full-time years.
3. 2,000 Nursing Case Management Practice Hours Within Three Years
This is the requirement that most often surprises applicants. The hours must be in nursing case management practice specifically, and they must fall within the three years before you apply. General RN hours do not substitute.
4. 30 Hours of Specialty Continuing Education Within Three Years
You need 30 hours of continuing education relevant to case management, also completed within the three-year lookback window.
| Requirement | Threshold | Lookback Window |
|---|---|---|
| RN licensure | Current, active (or accepted international equivalent) | Must be active at application |
| RN experience | 2 full-time-equivalent years | No specific window stated |
| Case management practice | 2,000 hours | Within 3 years |
| Specialty CE | 30 hours | Within 3 years |
Counting Practice Hours and CE the Right Way
The two three-year requirements are where applicants lose time. A few practical points help you document them cleanly.
What counts as case management practice
Your hours should reflect work that maps to the exam's four content areas: professional foundation, care coordination, quality management, and health promotion. Typical roles include hospital-based case managers, utilization and transitions-of-care nurses, payer-side care managers, population health and ambulatory care coordinators, and community or home-health case managers. If your title says "case manager" but most of your time goes to unrelated duties, be conservative in how you tally the hours. For a sense of the employers and titles in this space, see our guide to CMGT-BC jobs.
Building a simple hours log
- Pull schedules or timesheets for the past three years and estimate case management hours per role.
- If you changed roles, split the hours by position so each segment is defensible.
- Remember that 2,000 hours is roughly a year of full-time work, so most full-time case managers clear it well inside three years. Part-time nurses should do the math before applying.
Choosing CE that qualifies
The 30 CE hours must be specialty-relevant, meaning tied to case management content rather than generic continuing education. Topics such as transitions of care, utilization review, care planning, quality improvement, and population health fit naturally. Keep certificates in one folder with dates, since the three-year window is measured on completion date.
Critical: The Program Phaseout and Your Deadlines
This is the most time-sensitive part of the entire eligibility picture. ANCC is retiring the Nursing Case Management program, and the sequence matters for anyone who has not yet applied.
| Milestone | Date |
|---|---|
| Last day to submit an initial application | December 31, 2026 |
| Last day to take or retake the examination | December 31, 2027 |
| Program becomes renewal-only | After December 31, 2027 |
| Active certificants may continue renewing | If actively certified on January 1, 2028 |
In plain terms, if you do not yet hold the certification, your window is closing. You must have your initial application in by the end of 2026, and your testing, including any retakes, must be finished by the end of 2027. After the exam retires, certification that lapses beyond the two-year reactivation window cannot be reactivated by taking the retired examination, because the examination will no longer exist.
Key Takeaway
Work backward from December 31, 2027. Your authorization lasts 120 days, a failed attempt requires a 60-day wait, and you may need a second or third attempt. Applying early leaves room for a retake; applying at the deadline does not. See CMGT-BC exam dates and scheduling for planning detail.
Because exam availability is ending, the credential's long-term appeal rests on the fact that nurses certified by January 1, 2028 can keep renewing. If you are deciding between this and other pathways, the salary guide and cost breakdown help frame the decision.
Application, Fees, and Authorization to Test
Fees
The initial certification fee is $395 for nonmembers or $295 for ANA members. Included in that total is a $140 nonrefundable administrative fee, so a withdrawn or ineligible application will not return the full amount. If you are on the fence about membership, the $100 difference is worth weighing against your application timeline. The full picture is in our pricing breakdown.
The 120-day authorization window
Once ANCC approves your application, you receive authorization to test that is valid for 120 days. You schedule your appointment with Prometric within that window. Do not apply until your study plan is far enough along that you can realistically test within four months, because letting authorization lapse means losing time and fees.
Where you test
The certification exam is delivered in person at Prometric test centers. It is not remotely proctored. Note that ANCC offers readiness tests that can be taken remotely, but that does not mean the certification exam itself is available online. Plan for travel to a test center and for the identification and arrival requirements Prometric enforces.
What You Qualify to Sit For: Exam Format
Understanding the exam helps you decide when to apply, since your authorization clock starts ticking at approval.
- Delivery: closed-book, computer-based, multiple-choice, at Prometric test centers.
- Length: 150 questions, of which 125 are scored and 25 are unscored pretest items.
- Time: three hours. Breaks consume exam time.
- Tools: no personal calculators and no paper or electronic resources. A dry-erase board is supplied.
- Navigation: you may mark questions and revisit them, and there is no penalty for guessing.
Scoring uses a scaled system with a maximum of 500, and a passing score is at least 350. This is set with a Modified Angoff standard-setting process, so it is not a simple raw 70% cutoff. For details, see the CMGT-BC passing score explained. For context on outcomes, the 2025 first-time pass rate was 66%, with 188 of 286 first-time candidates passing, and 1,961 certificants were active as of December 31, 2025. Our pass rate analysis and difficulty guide unpack what those numbers mean for your preparation.
Using the Four Domains to Plan Your Prep
Once you know you qualify, the exam content outline tells you where to spend study time. The domain weights below are the issuer's published percentages (which round to 101% in total), alongside the scored-question allocations out of 125.
| Domain | Weight | Scored Items |
|---|---|---|
| Professional Foundation | 22% | 27 |
| Care Coordination | 30% | 37 |
| Quality Management | 26% | 32 |
| Health Promotion | 23% | 29 |
Care Coordination is the largest domain, so it deserves the biggest share of your time. The full breakdown is in our domains guide.
Care Coordination First
- Start with the heaviest domain (37 scored items) while your energy is highest.
- Map your daily work to the domain so you recognize scenarios.
Quality Management
- Cover outcomes measurement, improvement methods, and risk concepts (32 scored items).
Health Promotion and Professional Foundation
- Review these two lighter domains together (29 and 27 scored items).
Timed Practice
- Run full-length sessions with a three-hour limit to build pacing for 150 questions.
For a fuller approach, use the CMGT-BC study guide, the one-page cheat sheet for final review, and the practice tests to rehearse the question style.
Retesting Rules If You Don't Pass
A failed attempt does not end your path, but the rules shape how you plan around the phaseout.
- You must wait at least 60 calendar days after the previous attempt.
- You must have renewed eligibility on file.
- You are limited to no more than three attempts in 12 months.
- All of this is subject to the final testing deadline of December 31, 2027.
Because of the 60-day wait, a candidate who applies late in 2027 may not have time for a retake. This is the practical argument for applying and testing earlier rather than later. If you want to avoid needing a second attempt, practice with the exam simulator before scheduling.
After You Qualify: Five-Year Cycle and Renewal
Certification lasts five years. Renewal requires active licensure and certification standing, 75 specialty CE hours (at least 60 of them formally approved), plus one additional professional-development category. The 1,000-practice-hour option is one way to satisfy that additional category; it is not a universal requirement. Renewal activities must occur within the five-year cycle and before you submit the renewal application.
Renewal fees are $350 for nonmembers, with ANA-member pricing advertised as low as $250. Importantly, examination-based renewal becomes unavailable once the exam retires, so nurses should plan to renew through the CE and professional-development pathway. Nurses actively certified on January 1, 2028 can continue renewing. Lapse beyond the two-year reactivation window means the credential cannot be recovered by retaking the retired exam.
For a broader introduction to the designation, see CMGT-BC certification and what CMGT-BC is.
Frequently Asked Questions
The eligibility requirements listed here are an active RN license (or accepted international equivalent), two full-time-equivalent RN years, 2,000 case management practice hours, and 30 specialty CE hours. A specific degree is not among those four requirements, but confirm current details on the ANCC program page before applying.
Yes. The requirement is two full-time-equivalent years, so part-time or per-diem RN work counts as long as the combined total equals two full-time years. The 2,000 case management hours must still be completed within three years.
Initial applications are accepted through December 31, 2026. The examination and retesting end December 31, 2027, after which the program is renewal-only.
No. The certification exam is administered in person at Prometric test centers and is not remotely proctored. Remote readiness tests do not change that.
Standard authorization to test lasts 120 days. Schedule your Prometric appointment within that window, and apply only when your preparation is close to ready.