Certification

[traveler RN]

Has anyone heard of any rumors or fact that the Fed gov. is mandating certification for dialysis nurses and techs?

[rondafan]

I have heard this..........we supposedly have someone coming to our unit to administer the test to all the techs....haven't heard that licensed staff have to have it tho. Our nurse manager took a practice test & didn't pass........heard it was tough.

[3rdcareerRN]

This is Fact, only for technicians:

See

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CFCsAndCoPs/downloads/ESRDfinalrule0415.pdf,

page 20425 (which is page 57 in the PDF document).

Summary: Patient care dialysis technicians must be certified under a State certification program or a national commercially available certification program as follows: (i) For newly employed patient care technicians, within 18 months of being hired as a dialysis patient care technician, or (ii) For patient care technicians employed on October 14, 2008, within 18 months after such date. We are allowing an 18-month time period for certification to ensure that a sufficient time period is available for PCTs to schedule a date to sit for the certification exam.][/indent

There is also now a training requirement for water-treatment technicians.

For nurses, certification is not required but experience is:

"for nurse manager and charge nurse experience in this final rule we require all registered nurses to have 12 months experience in providing nursing care, including 3 months of experience in providing nursing care to patients on maintenance dialysis."

How do you think this certification requirement will affect your site, in terms of tech staff turnover? Will your techs get certified and stay, or find other jobs outside dialysis?

[rondafan]

I wonder if this means all the certified techs will be getting raises once they complete this? I sure would expect one. My bosses are "not sure yet"..lol