Psychiatric nurse practitioner certification vs CNS certification?

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I have worked in the same medical center for all 27 years of my career. I had worked as a CNS for 3 years then as an NP for 7. The output. clinic were I last worked closed & the medical center had no compatible position so I took a staff nurse night position. That was 12 years ago. I recently applied for a per diem NP position in the medical center & I was denied credentialing by the medical board because my ANCC certification is as a CNS. I was under the assumption I would be grandfathered into the system because when I obtained my Master's 21 years ago, there wasn't any NP ANCC exam. I have tried to explain this to administration but I was told maybe I could work somewhere else! Of note, there are NP's with the same certification I have currently working in the medical center. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As per ANCC, I am not eligible to sit for the exam as I didn't graduate from an NP program. The university I graduated won't write me a letter for ANCC exam as they currently don't have an advanced practice psych program.

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

Unfortunately, institutions can pick and choose the qualifications they want to see in candidates for any open position. That's not uncommon nowadays when we have many nurses with the exact APN national and state certification employers want. I am assuming you have a state nurse practitioner license given to you after you were grandfathered as a CNS as some stated did in the past? One option (if you have no desire to pursue additional grad school credits towards NP) is to seek CNS positions.

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Thank you for your feedback. Yes I was granted a license in my state after taking further required courses. I am doing just as you suggested, looking for CNS positions. Another option I have is to pursue administration or nursing Ed with my master's.

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Specializes in Psychiatric Nursing.

Which states will grandfather a CNS certification and give an NP certification or license? Do you have to take extra classes or an exam ? Can classes be done online? How many and what kind of classes??

I got my psych CNS in 1994. I do locums and am licensed to prescribe in 5 states which is plenty of licenses to keep up with. But there are jobs in some other states I may be interested in.

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There was a period of time in the mid 90's where New York State allowed CNS's to take certain classes making us eligible for licensure. They don't allow this any longer probably because there are more NP programs & hardly any CNS programs.

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Specializes in ACNP-BC, Adult Critical Care, Cardiology.

Michigan did the same. There was a period of time when graduates of both NP and CNS programs were eligible for Michigan's Nursing Specialty Certification as NP's. The state set a period and end date for this to be allowed. There are still NP's in that state who made it through that deadline and are actually trained as CNS's but state certified as NP's and working in NP roles. They have an unrestricted NP license and could work as NP's but may have problems endorsing out of state if their CNS training is questioned.

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