Federal Requirements
“If, since an individual’s most recent completion of a training and competency evaluation program, there has been a continuous period of 24 consecutive months during none of which the individual provided nursing or nursing-related services for monetary compensation, the individual must complete a new training and competency evaluation program or a new competency evaluation program.”
Iowa Requirements
Nursing assistants working in licensed and or certified skilled nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities and home health agencies must be certified. You are only required to be on the Iowa Iowa Direct Care Worker Registry if you are seeking employment in a Long Term Care (LTC) facility. In order to keep your CNA status active on the registry you must work as a CNA at certified long term care facilities such as nursing homes, skilled care facilities and skilled or swing bed units in a hospital, for at least one eight consecutive hour shift within a twenty-four month period. Qualifying employment is the only way to remain active on the registry. Education or volunteer work will not maintain a CNA in active status on the registry.
In order to work in a Long Term Care facility or larger hospitals, your certificate must read active. You can be in “No Test” or “No Employment” status and still work as a CNA in home health, assisted living programs, intermediate and residential care facilities, elder group homes, CDAC, etc. on your course completion certificate alone. Your course completion certificate never expires. Only your ability to work in a Long Term Care Facility expires after 24 months of no reported LTC CNA employment.
LTC facilities are the only ones mandated by state and federal law to verify eligibility and report qualifying employment to the registry. Non-LTC entities such as assisted living programs, home health agencies, intermediate and residential care facilities, hospices, etc., are not required by state and federal law to verify eligibility or report employment and in these other settings, CNAs may perform non-nursing related duties such as housekeeping, dietary, laundry, recreation activities, travel time from client to client, or taking clients to activities or appointments.
These activities do not meet the federal requirements and even though a CNA may perform some reportable duties, if the other duties are performed as well during the 8 consecutive hours reporting period it will disqualify the employment. If there is a gap of more than two years between any LTC employment you have had, you are ineligible to work in Long Term Care facilities until the gap has been filled with additional countable employment or you retake and pass both the written and skills state competency exams.
In Iowa, CNAs are not required to take the CNA course to challenge the exams. You may contact the Iowa Direct Care Worker Registry by email at DCW@dia.iowa.gov or by phone at 515-281-4077 to verify this information.
Illinois Requirements
If an individual that has previously been deemed competent as a CNA in Illinois, has a period of 24 consecutive months that the individual has not provided nursing or nursing-related services for pay, the approved certification is lost. A facility must require an individual to complete a new NATCEP or a new CEP when an individual has not performed nursing or nursing-related services for monetary compensation for a continuous period of 24 consecutive months since the most recent completion of a NATCEP.
A CNA will lose their status of certification if he or she goes for a continuous period of 24 consecutive months after his or her last competency evaluation during none of which the individual provided nursing or nursing-related services for monetary compensation. If the CNA continuously works providing nursing-related services for money, the individual continues to retain the CNA certification no matter how many years the individual works. You can contact the Illinois Health Care Worker Registry by phone at 217-785-5133 or by e-mail at DPH.HCWR@Illinois.gov .