Certification

Individuals who hold the CCDS must apply for recertification every two years. It is due on the anniversary of the date on which they passed the CCDS exam. That date is printed on the individual’s certificate. It is CCDS holder's responsibility to know their recertification due date. ACDIS sends multiple email reminders to the email address on file. ACDIS is not responsible for late, suspended, or revoked certifications. Please also note that you can find your recertification due date on your account on the certification site.

Certification holders can look up their due date on the CCDS Certification Holders page using the posted PDF list. Employers can also use this list to verify their employee's credential.

Please email the Certification Office at certifications@hcpro.com with any questions.

Benefits for the organization:

• Allows the organization to identify those individuals who have demonstrated knowledge and skills that equip them to function as an effective clinical documentation specialist
• Demonstrates that individuals are competent to provide ongoing education for physicians and other clinical staff
• Ensures the maintenance of professional standards through the individuals’ commitment to continuing education to maintain certification and stay up-to-date on regulations and areas that are critical to accurate documentation, coding, and hospital quality initiatives
• Provides the organization with peace of mind in knowing that, in an atmosphere of increased government scrutiny, compliance standards are met due to adherence with the ACDIS Code of Ethics

Benefits for the Clinical Documentation Specialist:

• Encourages clinical documentation specialists to hold themselves to a higher standard and obtain the requisite knowledge and skills to fulfill their responsibilities effectively

• Denotes that clinical documentation specialists have achieved a mark of distinction based on an acquired body of knowledge, skills, and experience
• Establishes leadership within their profession and provide physicians and clinical staff with education regarding documentation requirements
• Emphasizes the role of the clinical documentation specialist within the health information management (HIM) arena and establishes the clinical documentation specialist profession as key in ensuring healthcare data integrity
• Encourages continued education to keep pace with changing government and private payer regulations and industry standards

The passing score is 88 correct out of 120 scored questions. Approximately 77% of first-time examinees pass the CCDS.

To learn more about CCDS and CCDS-O exam results, watch this video with former Certification Coordinator Penny Richards.

The examination is an objective, multiple-choice test consisting of 140 questions. The examination questions are designed to test the candidate's multidisciplinary knowledge of clinical, coding, and healthcare regulations, as well as the roles and responsibilities of a clinical documentation specialist. The questions are updated on a continuous basis to keep them relevant to current realities in healthcare. Choices of answers to the examination questions will be identified as A, B, C, or D.

• Recall questions test the candidate's knowledge of specific facts and concepts relevant to the day-to-day work of clinical documentation professionals.
• Application questions require the candidate to interpret or apply information, guidelines, or rules to a particular situation.
• Analysis questions test the candidate's ability to evaluate and integrate a range of information in problem solving to address a particular challenge.

The current examination is designed so that approximately 40% of the questions will be of the recall type, 40% of the application type, and 20% of the analysis type.

To learn more about the exam day, watch this video with former CCDS Coordinator Penny Richards.

Candidates must complete an online application by clicking here. To login to the application site, ACDIS members can use their regular ACDIS website login credentials. If you do not have a member login, please click the "Register" button.

Please have your education and work history information available prior to starting your application. If you don’t have that available and save a draft of the first page, you will receive an email from us with a link back to the application. In order to complete the application, you will need to click the “Start CCDS Application" button again. Don’t worry, all the information you did enter will be prefilled, all you will need to do is complete the rest of Page 1 and proceed to Page 2 of the application.

PSI/AMP will send scheduling instructions to the candidate, and the candidate will schedule their own examination. Candidates have three months/90 days from the date their name is submitted to PSI/AMP to schedule and take their exam.

The fee for the certification application process and examination is $255 for ACDIS members and $355 for non-members. Payment may be made by credit card, personal check, or money order payable to HCPro, Inc. While fees are non-refundable, payment will be returned if the application is not approved. Please note that your ACDIS membership discount will be automatically applied when you log into the certification site with your membership login.