- The Short Answer: What CHRC Means
- Why the Acronym Causes Confusion
- Who Issues the Credential
- What the Credential Covers: Seven Domains
- How the Exam Is Built
- Eligibility, Fees, and Renewal at a Glance
- Who Holds a CHRC and Where They Work
- CHRC Compared With Neighboring Credentials
- A Domain-Ordered Start to Preparing
- Frequently Asked Questions
- CHRC here means Certified in Healthcare Research Compliance, issued by the independent Compliance Certification Board (CCB) and associated with HCCA.
- The exam has 120 multiple-choice questions in two hours: 100 scored plus 20 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 fees are $350 for HCCA/SCCE members and $450 for non-members; certification stays valid for two years.
The Short Answer: What CHRC Means
In the context of this site, CHRC stands for Certified in Healthcare Research Compliance. It is a professional credential for people whose work involves keeping research organizations, such as academic medical centers, hospitals, sponsors, and research institutes, aligned with the laws, regulations, and ethical standards that govern human-subjects and clinical research. If you hold it, you can write "CHRC" after your name to signal that you have met a defined body of knowledge and experience in research compliance.
The credential is issued by the independent Compliance Certification Board (CCB), and the governing organization most candidates deal with is the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA). For a fuller walk-through of the title, see our companion explainers on what CHRC certification is and what CHRC stands for.
Why the Acronym Causes Confusion
Four letters, several meanings. If you searched "CHRC" and landed here by accident, you are not alone. The same acronym is used in other professional fields, including human-resources and cardiac-care contexts, and those credentials have their own issuers, exams, and requirements. None of that applies here.
A quick way to confirm you are looking at the right credential: the research-compliance CHRC is tied to the HCCA and the CCB, tests the seven domains listed below, and is built for people who administer, audit, investigate, and educate around research activity. If the credential you are researching is administered by a different organization or focused on a different profession, you want a different resource. Our CHRC meaning page covers the disambiguation in more detail.
Who Issues the Credential
Two organizations are often conflated, so it helps to separate their roles:
- HCCA (Health Care Compliance Association): the professional association that publishes the candidate handbook, the detailed content outline, sample questions, and the exam-information and fee pages.
- CCB (Compliance Certification Board): the independent board that issues the credential itself and sets the standards for earning and keeping it.
- PSI: the testing provider that delivers the exam, via test-center computers, remote proctoring, or paper-and-pencil administration at selected HCCA/SCCE events.
This separation is a point of integrity for the credential: the body that issues certification is independent of the association that provides education and resources. For an overview of how all the pieces fit, our CHRC certification page is a good starting point.
What the Credential Covers: Seven Domains
The clearest answer to "what does CHRC mean in practice?" is the exam's detailed content outline, which divides the profession into seven domains. The percentages below correspond to the outline's published item counts out of 100 scored questions.
| 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% |
The two heaviest domains
Domain 5: Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems (20%)
This is the largest slice of the exam. Expect questions about how a research compliance program detects problems rather than just how it prevents them.
- Designing and conducting audits and monitoring activities in a research setting
- Operating hotlines and other internal reporting channels, and handling what comes through them
- Deciding what an audit finding means and what should happen next
Domain 4: Communication, Education, and Training (18%)
Research compliance depends on investigators, coordinators, and staff understanding their obligations. This domain tests how a compliance professional builds that understanding.
- Targeting training to different audiences, from principal investigators to administrative staff
- Communicating policy changes and regulatory expectations
- Documenting education efforts so they can be demonstrated later
Together these two domains account for 38% of scored questions, which is why candidates who understand audit logic and training design have a structural advantage. Our deeper breakdown lives in the complete guide to all 7 CHRC content areas.
The remaining domains in brief
Standards, Policies, and Procedures (17%) covers the rules a research organization must follow and how those rules become written, enforceable policy. The official outline names the agencies and regulatory bodies in scope, including FDA, USDA, ORI, OCR, and OHRP. NIH is a useful preparation resource recommended by the issuer, but it is not a separately weighted exam domain.
Compliance Program Administration (15%) addresses how the program itself is structured, resourced, and overseen.
Investigations and Remedial Measures (14%) tests what happens once a potential problem surfaces: how to investigate, what corrective action looks like, and how to prevent recurrence.
Screening and Evaluation (8%) and Enforcement, Discipline, and Incentives (8%) are the lightest domains by weight, but they are not throwaways. Screening involves vetting researchers, sponsors, vendors, and others before and during engagement, and enforcement covers consistent discipline and the use of incentives to encourage compliant behavior.
How the Exam Is Built
The exam is a closed-book, multiple-choice test delivered in English only. Here is the verified structure:
- 120 questions total: 100 are scored; 20 are unscored pretest questions that are not identified to you.
- Two hours to complete the exam.
- Delivery options: test-center computer, remote proctoring, or paper-and-pencil at selected HCCA/SCCE events, all through PSI.
- Restrictions: reference materials and personal electronic devices are limited under the proctoring rules for each delivery method, and the remote-testing FAQ expressly prohibits handheld calculators.
Because you cannot tell which 20 questions are unscored, treat every item as if it counts. The passing standard is set through an Angoff process applied to the scored questions. A fixed numerical cut score has not been publicly verified, and the pass rate is not disclosed in the official materials we located, so be skeptical of any site that states either number with confidence. Our pages on the CHRC passing score and CHRC pass rate explain what is and is not known.
Questions are application-oriented: you are more likely to be asked what a compliance officer should do in a described research situation than to recite a definition. If you want a realistic sense of that style, you can try practice questions on our main site, and our difficulty guide discusses what makes the items challenging.
Eligibility, Fees, and Renewal at a Glance
Who can sit for the exam
Candidates generally need both of the following:
- Work experience: one year in a full-time compliance position, or 1,500 hours of direct compliance duties in the two years before applying, with duties related to the 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 satisfy the work-experience requirement for 24 months and the CEU requirement for 12 months. Note that the issuer's sources are not fully consistent about what graduates must do after the first 12 months, so confirm your situation with HCCA before relying on that pathway. No separate degree or reference requirement was verified. The full picture is in our CHRC requirements guide.
What it costs
| Item | HCCA/SCCE Member | Non-Member |
|---|---|---|
| Initial exam application (current) | $350 | $450 |
| Eligible re-exam | $75 | $75 |
| Renewal (current) | $145 | $265 |
HCCA/SCCE has announced higher rates effective January 1, 2027: initial exam fees of $375 for members and $475 for non-members, and renewal fees of $155 and $275. Those are future prices, not what applies today. See the CHRC certification cost breakdown for planning detail and the exam dates and scheduling guide for timing.
Keeping the credential
Certification is valid for two years. Renewal requires 40 CCB CEUs earned during the renewal period, at least 20 of them live, plus an application, attestations, and the renewal fee. CEUs from the initial exam and any excess renewal CEUs do not carry over into the next period.
Key Takeaway
Start tracking CEUs the day you decide to certify. Both the 12-month pre-exam window and the two-year renewal cycle count live credits separately, and surplus credits do not roll forward.
Who Holds a CHRC and Where They Work
The credential suits professionals whose daily work touches research oversight. Typical settings include:
- Academic medical centers and university research offices
- Hospitals and health systems running clinical trials
- Research institutes and sponsors
- Organizations that manage grants, research billing, and coverage analysis
Typical responsibilities include auditing research activity, advising investigators, reviewing how research costs are billed, managing reports from staff, and leading corrective action when something goes wrong. Our CHRC jobs page looks at roles in more depth.
On pay, be careful. Compensation surveys such as HCCA's 2026 Healthcare Compliance Compensation Survey cover the compliance profession broadly, but a CHRC-specific salary premium has not been verified. We discuss that distinction in the salary guide and in the ROI analysis.
CHRC Compared With Neighboring Credentials
Research compliance sits next to several other credentials, and candidates often ask which fits their path.
| Credential | General Focus |
|---|---|
| CHRC | Compliance program management specific to research organizations |
| CHC | Broader healthcare compliance across provider and payer settings |
| CCRP | Clinical research professional practice, closer to conducting studies than administering compliance programs |
| CIP | Institutional review board and human-subjects protection expertise |
The key distinction is perspective. CHRC takes the viewpoint of the compliance program: how it is run, monitored, and enforced across seven operational domains. Credentials centered on conducting trials or reviewing protocols emphasize different daily work. Choosing among them depends on whether your job is building and auditing the program or performing and reviewing the research itself.
A Domain-Ordered Start to Preparing
HCCA states that no official exam study guide is available. Its public sample questions and a candidate-only 50-question practice exam are the issuer's preparation resources, and its Research Academies are educational events rather than exam-prep classes. That makes the detailed content outline your primary map. Here is one way to sequence an opening stretch around the domain weights:
Anchor on the outline
- Read the full content outline and note the complete domain headings
- Start with Standards, Policies, and Procedures (17%) to learn the regulatory vocabulary the other domains build on
Program structure and people
- Compliance Program Administration (15%)
- Screening and Evaluation (8%), which is short and pairs naturally with program oversight
The two heaviest domains
- Monitoring, Auditing, and Internal Reporting Systems (20%)
- Communication, Education, and Training (18%)
Consequences and review
- Investigations and Remedial Measures (14%) and Enforcement, Discipline, and Incentives (8%)
- Timed mixed practice to simulate the two-hour window
For a full plan, see our CHRC study guide, and for a condensed refresher, the one-page cheat sheet. You can also take a CHRC practice test to see where your gaps are.
Frequently Asked Questions
On this site, CHRC means Certified in Healthcare Research Compliance, a credential issued by the Compliance Certification Board and associated with HCCA. It signals competence in managing compliance for research organizations.
No. The acronym is shared by other credentials in unrelated fields. This article covers only the healthcare research compliance credential and its seven exam domains.
The exam contains 120 multiple-choice questions, of which 100 are scored and 20 are unscored pretest items. You have two hours, and the exam is offered in English only.
The current initial exam application fee is $350 for HCCA/SCCE members and $450 for non-members, with eligible re-exams at $75. Higher rates of $375 and $475 are announced for January 1, 2027.
HCCA states that no official exam study guide is available. The issuer offers sample questions, a candidate-only 50-question practice exam, and the detailed content outline, which together form the core of any preparation plan.