According to the Nebraska Nurse Aide Registry, a person who has not worked as a nurse aide for two years and who has taken an approved 75-hour nurse aide course may reactivate his or her registration by retaking the written and clinical exams. You must pass both parts of the exam in order to reactivate your lapsed certification and you are not eligible to work in a Medicare or Medicaid certified nursing facility until you have successfully completed these exams and the results have been posted to the registry or the facility has been provided with copies of the exam results.
You can retest through one of the post-secondary education providers approved for nurse aide re-competency testing. The provider will determine the fee for the exam. You will usually complete both the written and clinical exams on the same day and you will know that same day if you passed or failed both exams. The provider will then forward your test scores to the registry. It takes about three weeks to update your records once they receive the results from the provider. If you wish to sign up to take the exams through one of these providers, you will need to contact the provider directly to sign up. You will need to give them a printout of your registry information from the website to show that you completed a 75-hour nurse aide course and that you are eligible to retest.
Once you are placed on the nurse aide registry your status remains active until such time as 24 months have lapsed since you stopped working as a nurse aide. If you do not provide nursing or nursing related services, for pay, for more that 24 months, your status becomes lapsed. The requirement is that a nurse aide be active only for Medicare or Medicaid certified nursing facilities. There are no inservice or continuing education requirements for maintaining an active status on the nurse aide registry. There is a requirement for Medicare and Medicaid certified and licensed nursing facilities to provide nurse aides with 12 hours of inservice. This inservice requirement is a facility requirement and not a nurse aide registry requirement.
A person who has performed nurse aide duties for pay that was not reported to the registry may submit an Employment Verification Form which is a statement from the employer that verifies the name and address of the employer, dates of employment, and that nurse aide duties were performed. This form may be used to update employment as long as there is not a two-year gap in employment since the last test date or last date of employment shown on the registry. Those who performed nurse aide duties for a state-licensed facility or agency in Nebraska do not need to have the notary section of the Employment Verification Form completed, however, if you worked for anyone else (private duty, or a non-licensed facility or agency) the notary section does have to be completed.
If you have have additional questions about reactivation from lapsed to active status or eligibility for retesting you may call the registry at (402) 471-0537. Questions regarding testing forms, fees and scheduling the exam should be directed to the examination provider.