As a health science curriculum developer, we work with thousands of teachers every year who need to prepare their students for industry certifications.
One of the most popular exams teachers consider is the National Healthcareer Association’s (NHA) Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist (CEHRS) certification.
However, some teachers we speak with are unfamiliar with the requirements for the NHA CEHRS exam and ask us questions about what it is and how to prepare their students for success.
In this article, we’ll review what an Electronic Health Record (EHR) Specialist is and how to prepare your students for the NHA CEHRS exam.
Let's start by giving a quick overview of what an EHR specialist is.
What Is an Electronic Health Record Specialist?
An Electronic Health Record (EHR) Specialist holds the responsibility of managing patient health information to ensure that the data is accurate, organized, and electronically secure.
The job market outlook for EHR Specialists and health information technicians is trending up. According to healthgrad.com, there is a predicted 15% increase in job demand by 2024.
EHR Specialists are critical to ensuring doctors’ offices, private practices, hospitals, physical therapists, and every kind of healthcare facility runs properly and are able to serve their patients.
What Is the NHA CEHRS Exam?
The NHA CEHRS exam is an industry certification developed by the National Healthcareer Association (NHA) to measure students’ knowledge and skills so they can become electronic health record specialists.
When someone passes the EHR certification exam, they earn a certification designating that they can work in a healthcare facility as a CEHRS.
How Is the NHA CEHRS Exam Structured?
The NHA CEHRS exam consists of 150 questions (plus 20 pre-test questions that are used to gather data).
The questions fall into five topic areas, which the NHA refers to as “domains:”
- Non-Clinical Operations (28%)
- Clinical Operations (32%)
- Revenue Cycle/Finance (15%)
- Regulatory Compliance (15%)
- Reporting (10%)
Each domain has different subtopics that are categorized as either knowledge statements or task statements.
Knowledge statements refer to information and concepts that the student will need to know.
Task statements relate to physical duties that the student will need to know how to perform.
Domain 1 - Non-Clinical Operations
The Non-Clinical Operations domain includes 13 task statements that cover duties that include managing patient information, coordinating patient flow, and supporting colleagues with EHR software.
The 25 non-clinical operations knowledge statements are related to general office skills, EHR-related hardware maintenance, patient portal support, and more.
The information in this domain is the bare minimum of what any electronic health record specialist will need to know for success as a healthcare professional.
Domain 2 - Clinical Operations
The Clinical Operations domain includes 9 task statements that cover duties including finding electronic health records, documentation review, and navigating the EHR system.
The 19 clinical operations knowledge statements are related to procedures for securely transmitting data, data charting requirements, layouts of medical records, and more.
Like the previous domain, knowing how to find and organize health data can make or break someone’s success on the EHR certification exam.
Domain 3 - Revenue Cycle / Finance
The Revenue Cycle / Finance domain includes 9 task statements that cover duties that include verifying procedural descriptions, providing estimated patient costs, and managing payments.
The 24 revenue cycle/finance operations knowledge statements are related to clinical vocabularies, National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) standards, health insurance terminology, and more.
This domain ensures the EHR Specialist can provide accurate patient and organizational support for billing and account management.
Domain 4 - Regulatory Compliance
The Regulatory Compliance domain includes 12 task statements that cover adhering to professional standards with health records, identifying non-compliant behaviors, and participating in internal audits.
The 18 regulatory operations knowledge statements are related to HIPAA requirements, electronic security, federal guidelines on reporting breaches, and more.
This domain is important to ensure that the patient information is protected and that the EHR Specialist is always in compliance.
Domain 5 - Reporting
The Reporting domain includes 7 task statements covering running standardized financial and clinical reports, generating statistical reports, and verifying report accuracy.
The 7 reporting operations knowledge statements are related to HIPAA requirements, electronic security, federal guidelines on reporting breaches, and more.
This domain includes statements related to how an electronic health record specialist will generate financial, clinical, and medical reports.
How to Prepare Students for the NHA CEHRS Certification Exam
There are a variety of options out there for preparing students for certification exams, but it can be tough to decide the best one for you and your students.
Here are five ways you can teach CEHRS certification prep in your classroom:
- Start with the basics of record-keeping
- Discuss your own experiences in record-keeping
- Teach HIPAA standards
- Cover the CEHRS exam layout
- Use a digital curriculum
In our experience, teachers tell us that they find it works best to teach these skills with a base curriculum and then supplement them with test prep materials like study guides and practice tests.
When implementing this type of blended approach, many teachers opt to use our HealthCenter21 digital curriculum as a supplemental curriculum resource.
Prepare Your Students for the NHA CEHRS Exam with HealthCenter21
HealthCenter21 is built to empower you to help your students succeed in the classroom, on the exam, and in their future careers as electronic health record specialists.
It's a great supplement to help you add blended learning strategies in conjunction to your other curriculum.
This is made possible with thousands of ready-to-use instructional resources, classroom management tools, assessment options, student tracking features, and more.
Along with all of that, we’ve mapped the curriculum content to the NHA CEHRS test plan so you can see exactly how HealthCenter21 will help you prepare your students!
