Certification

ABOUT THE CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

1. APPLY FOR HOME CARE AIDE CERTIFICATION

If you must complete 70 hours of training (Option E from the Training Wizard), you must become a certified home care aide (HCA) within 150 days of your service begin date. If you are not required to take 70 hours of training, you can apply to become certified if you choose.

The Department of Health (DOH) oversees HCA certification. The first step in becoming certified is to apply to the DOH for certification. This is done with a DOH Home Care Aide Certification Application.

Submit your DOH HCA Certification Application to the DOH. Send in the required $60 application fee with your application. It can take four to six weeks to process your application—so get it in immediately.

You need the OCA number assigned through the background check process for this application.

CERTIFICATION APPLICATION

2. APPLY TO TAKE THE HOME CARE AIDE CERTIFICATION EXAM

A company called Prometric administers the HCA exam. As soon as you complete your required training, apply to take the HCA written and skills exam by filling out an Exam Application Form For Washington State Home Care Aide Examinations.

Once you have completed training, you need to do two things:

a)       Send a copy of your “Certificate of Completion” to the Department of Health at Home Care Aide Credentialing, PO Box 47877, Olympia, Washington, 98504-7877, and

b)      Complete the application for Prometric, sending another copy of the Certificate of Completion directly to Prometric.  

You will need their DOH applicant number to complete the Prometric application.  Because you will have submitted the DOH application within three days of hire (or soon thereafter), you will be able to find their applicant number at the following web-site:

Find Your Applicant Number

Under section 2, Search by Individual’s Name, you can select the credential, “Home Care Aide Certification” and put their last and first name in the other two boxes. This will bring their record up on the screen and will give them their DOH applicant number.

Submit your Exam Application to Prometric immediately after completing your 70 hours of training. There is a $115 exam application fee that you must send to Prometric with your completed application. You will also need to send copy of your signed DSHS 75 hour training certificate.

CERTIFICATION EXAM APPLICATION