- What This Credential Is (and Is Not)
- Who Issues It: HCCA, the CCB and PSI
- Eligibility, Fees and the 2027 Fee Change
- Exam Format and Passing Standard
- The Seven Domains in Detail
- Research-Specific Topics to Master
- Scheduling the Domains Over Your Prep Weeks
- Preparation Resources: What Exists and What Does Not
- Careers, Pay and Value
- Keeping the Credential Active
- Frequently Asked Questions
- The exam has 120 multiple-choice questions in two hours; 100 are scored and 20 are unscored pretest items.
- Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems is the heaviest domain at 20%, followed by Communication, Education, and Training at 18%.
- Initial exam fee is $350 for HCCA/SCCE members and $450 for non-members until the January 1, 2027 increase.
- HCCA states there is no official exam study guide, so build your plan from the Detailed Content Outline.
What This Credential Is (and Is Not)
CHRC stands for Certified in Healthcare Research Compliance. It is a professional credential for people who run, support or audit compliance functions inside research-active healthcare organizations: academic medical centers, hospital research enterprises, universities with clinical trial portfolios, sponsors and contract research settings. If you are new to the acronym, our explainers on what CHRC is and what CHRC stands for cover the basics in short form.
A caution before going further: the same four letters are used by unrelated credentials elsewhere, including ones in human resources and other healthcare fields. Everything on this page concerns only the healthcare research compliance credential. If you are comparing it with neighbors such as the CHC (general healthcare compliance) or clinical research credentials like the CCRC or CIP, remember that those test different bodies of knowledge. The CHRC centers on the compliance program wrapped around research, not on conducting trials or reviewing protocols as an IRB member.
Who Issues It: HCCA, the CCB and PSI
Three organizations appear in the process, and it helps to keep their roles straight:
- Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA): the governing body behind the certification program and the publisher of the Detailed Content Outline and candidate information.
- Compliance Certification Board (CCB): the independent board that issues the credential and approves continuing education units (CEUs).
- PSI: the testing provider that delivers the exam.
PSI delivery options include computer-based testing at a test center, remote proctoring, and paper-and-pencil administration at selected HCCA/SCCE events. The exam is offered in English only. For timing and scheduling specifics, see our guide to CHRC exam dates and scheduling.
Eligibility, Fees and the 2027 Fee Change
Prerequisites
Eligibility has two parts, and you need both before you sit:
- Work experience: one year in a full-time compliance position, or 1,500 hours of direct compliance duties in the two years before you apply, with duties related to the CHRC Detailed Content Outline.
- Continuing education: 20 CCB-approved CEUs earned in the 12 months before the exam, at least 10 of them live.
An accredited-university pathway can substitute for the experience requirement for 24 months and for the CEU requirement for 12 months, according to the current FAQ and a January 2026 CCB support article. One wrinkle deserves honesty: after the first 12 months, those support sources call for 20 new CCB CEUs including 10 live, while the handbook wording tells graduates to sit within 12 months. That discrepancy has not been resolved in the published materials, so if you are a recent graduate near the boundary, confirm your status directly with the CCB before you pay. No separate degree requirement or reference requirement was verified. Our CHRC requirements guide walks through qualifying scenarios in more detail.
Fees
| Item | HCCA/SCCE Member | Non-Member |
|---|---|---|
| Initial exam application (current) | $350 | $450 |
| Eligible re-exam | $75 | $75 |
| Initial exam (from January 1, 2027) | $375 | $475 |
| Renewal (current) | $145 | $265 |
| Renewal (from January 1, 2027) | $155 | $275 |
The fee page also lists a $75 non-refundable application amount, but it is part of the published initial total rather than an extra charge. Some older indexed handbook text still shows lower renewal figures; the current fee and FAQ pages take precedence. Third-party sites sometimes repeat outdated numbers, so verify against the issuer before budgeting. Membership status changes the price, which is why our CHRC certification cost breakdown compares total outlay with and without membership.
Exam Format and Passing Standard
- Length: 120 multiple-choice questions in two hours.
- Scoring: 100 scored questions plus 20 unidentified, unscored pretest questions. You cannot tell which are which, so treat every item as live.
- Book policy: closed book. Reference materials and personal electronic devices are restricted under the proctoring rules for your delivery method, and the remote-testing FAQ expressly prohibits handheld calculators.
- Language: English only.
The passing standard is established using the Angoff method applied to the scored questions. A fixed numerical cut score has not been publicly verified, and the official materials located do not disclose a pass rate. That means any specific percentage you see advertised as "the" passing mark for this exam should be treated with skepticism. We separate what is known from what is marketing in our articles on the CHRC passing score and the CHRC pass rate.
A fixed number of answer choices per question was also not verified for the current handbook, so do not assume a particular option count when practicing. Focus instead on the style: scenario-driven items that ask what a compliance professional should do, identify, or recommend in a research setting.
The Seven Domains in Detail
The weights below equal the published item counts out of 100 scored questions in the Detailed Content Outline. For a domain-by-domain walkthrough, see our complete guide to all 7 CHRC content areas.
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| 1. Standards, Policies, and Procedures | 17% |
| 2. Compliance Program Administration | 15% |
| 3. Screening and Evaluation of Researchers, Employees, Physicians, Sponsors, Vendors, Contractors, and Others | 8% |
| 4. Communication, Education, and Training | 18% |
| 5. Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems | 20% |
| 6. Enforcement, Discipline, and Incentives | 8% |
| 7. Investigations and Remedial Measures | 14% |
Domain 5: Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems (20%)
The largest slice of the exam. Expect questions on how a research compliance office decides what to audit, how it reports findings, and how employees and researchers raise concerns.
- Risk-based audit planning versus routine monitoring
- Hotlines and other reporting channels, and what happens after a report
- Translating audit findings into corrective action
Domain 4: Communication, Education, and Training (18%)
Training is not a checkbox here. The exam probes who needs what education, how often, and how to confirm it worked.
- Role-based training for investigators, coordinators, administrators and leadership
- Communicating policy changes and regulatory updates to researchers
- Documenting training and measuring effectiveness
Domain 1: Standards, Policies, and Procedures (17%)
This is where the regulatory landscape lives: the rules a research organization must translate into written policy.
- Which agency's expectations apply to which type of research activity
- Developing, approving, and revising policies and procedures
- Conflict-of-interest and research integrity standards
Domain 2: Compliance Program Administration (15%)
Program structure and governance: oversight, resources, independence and reporting lines for the research compliance function.
Domain 7: Investigations and Remedial Measures (14%)
What to do when something goes wrong: preserving evidence, scoping an inquiry, determining whether external reporting is required, and fixing root causes.
Domains 3 and 6 (8% each)
Screening and evaluation covers vetting of researchers, employees, physicians, sponsors, vendors and contractors. Enforcement, Discipline, and Incentives covers consistent consequences and positive reinforcement. Smaller weights, but items are often more predictable, which makes them efficient points to secure.
Research-Specific Topics to Master
Because the domains are compliance-program functions, the content is applied to research-specific risk areas. These recurring themes are worth deliberate study:
Agency roles
The outline expects you to know who regulates what. The agencies named in the official outline include FDA, USDA, ORI, OCR and OHRP. NIH is an issuer-recommended preparation resource rather than an additional weighted domain, but familiarity with NIH grant policy is useful context. A practical drill: for each agency, write one sentence on its jurisdiction and one example of a compliance event that would involve it (for instance, research misconduct allegations versus human subjects protections versus animal welfare).
Research billing and coverage analysis
Research that involves billing to patients or payers raises distinctive risk: separating items and services that are billable to insurance from those paid by a study sponsor, and ensuring that clinical trial charges are routed correctly. Questions in this territory tend to test whether you can spot a mismatch between what a protocol says, what a consent form promises and what actually got billed.
Grants and research integrity
Effort reporting, allowable costs, conflicts of interest and misconduct processes appear as audit, policy and investigation scenarios. Know how to tell a documentation gap from a potential integrity violation, and who needs to be notified in each case.
Key Takeaway
When a scenario question lists several plausible actions, the best answer usually reflects a compliance-program principle: escalate through established channels, document, protect against retaliation and fix the underlying process, rather than improvising a one-off fix.
Scheduling the Domains Over Your Prep Weeks
Generic study advice is plentiful, so here is only the CHRC-specific part: sequence your weeks by domain weight and dependency. This sample eight-week shape assumes you already meet eligibility.
Foundations: Domains 1 and 2
- Map each named agency to its research jurisdiction
- Review program structure and governance concepts
Heaviest content: Domain 5
- Audit planning, monitoring and reporting systems
- Work scenario items on findings and corrective action
Domains 4, 7, 3 and 6
- Training design and communication
- Investigation steps and remediation; screening, discipline and incentives
Timed practice and review
- Full 120-question timed sets at about one minute per item
- Re-study domains where you miss scenario logic, not just facts
Domain 5 gets early, dedicated attention because it carries one-fifth of the scored items and overlaps with Domains 4 and 7. For a fuller plan, see our CHRC study guide, and keep the CHRC cheat sheet handy for last-week review.
Preparation Resources: What Exists and What Does Not
HCCA states plainly that no official exam study guide is available. What the issuer does provide is the candidate handbook, the Detailed Content Outline, a public set of sample questions, and a candidate-only 50-question practice exam. HCCA Research Academies are professional-development events and are explicitly not exam-preparation classes, though they can earn live CEUs and deepen subject knowledge.
Independent options include question banks and study guides from third parties. Quality varies. When evaluating any resource, check four things: whether it distinguishes 120 total questions from 100 scored plus 20 pretest; whether it uses the full domain names; whether it cites current fees rather than outdated ones; and whether it explains why wrong answers are wrong. Be wary of vendor claims about pass rates and required study hours, since the issuer does not publish such data.
You can test your readiness against exam-style scenarios on our CHRC practice test platform, and our piece on how hard the CHRC exam is explains how to interpret practice scores realistically.
Careers, Pay and Value
People who hold or pursue this credential typically work in research compliance offices, institutional research administration, clinical trial operations oversight, internal audit, privacy and integrity functions, and compliance consulting. Employers are the organizations that conduct or oversee research: academic medical centers, health systems, universities, and sponsors or vendors that support them. Browse the types of roles in our CHRC jobs overview.
On compensation, be careful. HCCA publishes a 2026 Healthcare Compliance Compensation Survey for the profession broadly, but a CHRC-specific salary premium was not verified, and figures from the general compliance credential should not be assumed to apply. Whether the investment pays off depends on your role, employer and whether job postings in your market ask for it. Our salary analysis and ROI discussion lay out how to weigh those factors without relying on unsupported numbers.
Keeping the Credential Active
The certification is valid for two years. To renew you need:
- 40 CCB CEUs earned in the renewal period, at least 20 of them live
- A renewal application with attestations
- The renewal fee: $145 for members or $265 for non-members now, rising to $155 and $275 from January 1, 2027
CEUs used to qualify for the initial exam do not carry into the first renewal period, and excess CEUs do not roll forward. Plan CEU collection as a continuing habit rather than a last-minute scramble.
Frequently Asked Questions
There are 120 multiple-choice questions in two hours. Of those, 100 are scored and 20 are unidentified, unscored pretest questions, so you should answer every item with full effort.
The passing standard is set by the Angoff method based on the scored questions. A fixed numerical cut score has not been publicly verified, so treat any specific percentage you see online as unconfirmed.
Currently $350 for HCCA/SCCE members and $450 for non-members, with eligible re-exams at $75. Initial fees are announced to rise to $375 and $475 from January 1, 2027.
No. HCCA states that no official exam study guide exists. Use the Detailed Content Outline, the candidate handbook, public sample questions and the candidate-only 50-question practice exam, supplemented by independent resources.
Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems carries 20% of scored items, the most of any domain, followed by Communication, Education, and Training at 18%. Start there, then cover the rest in order of weight.