As a prerequisite for registration, respiratory care practitioners are required to complete continuing education. Current requirements for respiratory care practitioners are summarized below. If you would like to review the current rule, these requirements are currently listed in Board rule 187.16.

 

Respiratory care practitioners need to complete at least 24 credits/hours of continuing education (CE) every 24 months (24 month timeline goes by the biennial registration period, not the calendar year). A certificate holder must report during registration if she or he has completed the required CE during the previous two years (biennial registration period).  

 

Those who hold temporary permits are not subject to these continuing education requirements

24 total hours acceptable CE required per biennium (2 year registration period)

 

  • At least 12 contact hours must be in traditional courses. The remainder of contact hours may be in non-traditional courses or from passage of examinations detailed below under “Acceptable Continuing Education”
  • At least 2 contact hours must be in ethics. These ethics hours may be completed via traditional courses or non-traditional courses.
  • Of the 12 non-traditional courses, a course in human trafficking prevention approved by the executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission must be completed. The board shall credit completion of the human trafficking prevention course toward required ethics hours mention above.
  • One CE or contact hour activity is defined as 60 minutes attendance and participation in an acceptable continuing education experience.

 

Continuing education must be in skills relevant to the practice of respiratory care and must have a direct benefit to patients and clients and shall be acceptable if the experience falls in one or more of the following categories:

  • Provider-directed educational activities directly related to the profession of respiratory care that require the learner and provider to interact in real time, including, but not limited to, live lectures, courses, seminars, workshops, review sessions, or distance learning activities such as webcasts, videoconferences, and audio conferences in which the learner can interact with the provider.
  • Traditional CE must be approved, recognized, accepted, or assigned CE credit by a professional organization or association (such as TSRC, NBRC or AARC) or offered by a federal, state, or local government entity.
  • Self-directed study directly related to the profession of respiratory care that does not include interaction between the learner and the instructor. A test at the conclusion of the self-directed study is required.
  • Non-traditional CE must be approved, recognized, accepted, or assigned CE credit by a professional organization or association (such as TSRC, NBRC or AARC) or offered by a federal, state, or local government entity.
  • Completion of one academic semester unit or hour that is a part of the curriculum of a respiratory care education program or a similar education program in another health-care related field offered by an accredited institution shall be credited 15 contact hours of non-traditional CE.
  • A respiratory care practitioner who teaches or instructs a CE course shall be credited one (1) contact hour in non-traditional CE for each contact hour actually taught.
    • CE credit will be given only once for teaching a particular course.
  • Passage of an official credentialing or proctored self-evaluation examination, as follows:
    • NBRC Therapist Multiple Choice (TMC) credentialing or re-credentialing examination - 10 contact hours;
    • NBRC Clinical Simulation Examination (credentialing or re-credentialing) - 10 contact hours;
    • NBRC Neonatal/Pediatric Respiratory Care Specialist (NPS) examination - 10 contact hours;
    • NBRC Adult Critical Care Specialist (ACCS) examination - 10 contact hours;
    • NBRC Sleep Disorder Specialist (SDS) examination - 10 contact hours;
    • NBRC Certified Pulmonary Function Technologist (CPFT) examination or NBRC Registered Pulmonary Function Technologist (RPFT) examination - 10 contact hours
    • Board of Registered Polysomnographic Technologists (BRPT) registration examination - 10 contact hours
    • National Asthma Educator Certification Board (NAECB) Certified Asthma Educator (AE-C) examination (credentialing or re-credentialing) – 10 contact hours
    • Advanced cardiac life-support (ACLS), pediatric advanced life-support (PALS), neonatal advanced life-support (NALS) or neonatal resuscitation program (NRP), basic trauma life-support, or pre-hospital trauma life-support - 8 contact hours;
    • Examinations listed above may be counted only once for credit. If an initial credentialing examination is counted towards fulfillment of CE requirements, the same examination taken later for re-credentialing purposes may only be applied towards fulfillment of CE requirements once every three (3) renewal periods.

As part of the 24 formal hours required, a course in human trafficking prevention must be completed.

 

  • The course must be approved by HHSC, and
  • The course may be credited towards the requirements for medical ethics or professional responsibility for any physician.

 

See HHSC's Health Care Practitioner Human Trafficking Training page to access the free course that satisfies these requirements, and for more information about this requirement.

 

Senate Bill 415 (2023) requires physicians to complete at least 1 hour of CME in the identification and assistance of trafficked persons in their first renewal period after license issuance, and at least 1 hour every third renewal period thereafter. HHSC’s approved courses will fulfill this requirement.

A practitioner who also holds a current license, registration, or certification in another health care profession or a current license, registration, or certification as a respiratory care practitioner in another state, territory, or country may satisfy the CE requirements for renewal in Texas with hours counted toward renewal of another license, registration, or certification as long as the hours meet all current requirements.

No RCP CE hours may be carried over from one renewal period to another renewal period.

Those who hold temporary permits are not subject to these continuing education requirements.

A licensee may request in writing an exemption* for the following reasons:

 

  • Licensee's catastrophic illness;
  • Licensee's military service of longer than one year's duration outside the United States;
  • Licensee's residence of longer than one year's duration outside the United States; or
  • Good cause shown submitted in writing by the licensee that gives satisfactory evidence to the board that the licensee is unable to comply with the requirement for continuing education.

 

*Exemptions are reviewed on a case by case basis and must be requested in writing at least 30 days prior to the expiration date of the license.  An exemption may not exceed one registration period, but may be renewed, subject to approval.

 

Helpful Document:

As part of its 2016-2017 review, the Sunset Advisory Commission adopted a non-statutory management action directing TMB to dedicate one page of its quarterly bulletin to three topics in continuing medical education that the Board considers relevant; at least one of the annual 12 continuing medical education topics must be related to tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease.

 

DISCLAIMER:   The information displayed here is provided as a courtesy. The TMB makes no guarantee to the quality of providers’ content, fulfillment of credit hours for license requirement purposes, or ensuring compliance with the terms of any board order or rules. 

 

For more continuing education opportunities and providers, please see the following links below:

No. You will need to provide these documents if you are selected in a random CME audit conducted after each registration period or if you receive a written request from Board staff to present these documents.