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Discussion

How many hours worked to keep license active?

Hi All

I just moved to WA from DE and am now a SAHM. I am thinking of just letting my license expire and then in a few years, when I am ready to work, go through the route of re-activating my license to a WA license.

Just wondering how many hours you have to work in a year in WA to keep your license active? I see you have to renew your license yearly here too. So I am just trying to figure out what is better for me- letting my license expire (DE license expires in November) or working the bare minimum + required CEUs to keep a WA license active for whenever I do decide to go back to work on a more regular basis.

Thanks for your advice!

Melissa

PS- I did school nursing in DE so I could always pick up substitute school nursing jobs here and there to keep my RN active but I'd rather not! :nurse:

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    • Featured Replies

    Another option may be to just keep your DE license active. You don't have to live there to maintain an active license. Do they require a minimum # of hours to work? You can then just endorse to WA when you want to start working.

    Information about WA can be found here: http://www.doh.wa.gov/hsqa/Professions/Nursing/continuecomp.htm

    WA state just adopted, as of January 1, 2011, requirements to work 531 hours and complete 45 hours continuing nursing education over a 36 month period. I doubt they can really start auditing folks for this until 2014 since they're requiring us to start documenting as of this year.

    Welcome to WA!

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    • Author

    Yes same thing in DE, have to work so many hours to keep an RN license active. So then I would have to a WA license to work in WA. That's not very many hours over a 3 year period but it's more than I want to work :)

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    I know we just adopted the CE part, but I didn't know about the work hours.

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    Hmm, not sure about those work hours. What if you take a hiatus. I went back about 2 yrs ago and thankfully didnt have to work at all. I just kept my license active and had to return to work in less than 5 or I would have to take refresher courses. It would stink to have to work at all if you didn't want to or couldn't.

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    Those work hours can also be volunteer hours. You need a statement from whomever you are volunteering for, but they count.

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