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Renewal Requirements
CoreCHI™, CoreCHI-Performance™, & CHI™
certifications are valid for four years.
CCHI established specific certification renewal requirements in order to assure that certified interpreters keep abreast of the profession’s development and, at a minimum, maintain their skills at the level achieved at certification. CCHI acknowledges that technological and logistical changes within the healthcare interpreter profession occur at a steady pace. At the same time, interpreting skills require continuous practice to be maintained at an adequate level. In order to determine the optimal length for the certification validity, CCHI Commissioners have considered several factors:
- Input gathered from the Advisory Panel;
- Speed of the profession’s change;
- Review of the current requirements among the related interpreting specialties, such as court interpreter certification and certification of interpreters for the deaf;
- Empirical data about deterioration of interpreting skills (e.g., especially of the simultaneous interpreting skills as researched by conference interpreters);
- Rather continuous pace of organizational/policy changes in health care which requires interpreters to stay abreast of the new regulations and safety protocols that apply to the job in healthcare environment.
Review CCHI Certification Renewal Handbook carefully. For a brief overview, see CCHI’s Renewal At a Glance Guide.
Because CCHI starts the CoreCHI™ certification sunsetting on January 1, 2025, renewal of this credential will follow a special schedule. Click here to learn more.
If you have any questions, contact us at renewal@cchicertification.org.
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Rationales for Certification Renewal Requirements
Decisions regarding CCHI’s certification renewal requirements are reached after regular and thorough reviews of the professional practice, consultations with CCHI Advisors, and input from our certificants and other stakeholders.
The following external factors contribute to the Commissioners’ decisions regarding the length for the certification validity and the type of certification renewal requirements.
Pace of the profession’s change
The profession established its first national code of ethics in 2004, and it first standards of practice in 2005 (http://www.ncihc.org/resources). In 2016, the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC), after a number of focus group discussions, decided not to undertake the review of either documents since both were found relevant to the current situation. NCIHC published a more detailed guidance to its Advocacy standard in 2021.Pace of change regarding national language access policies
Language Access regulations have been addressed by the government primarily in Executive Order 13166 (2000), the CLAS Standards (2000, 2013), and Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010, 2016, 2020, 2024).Certification maintenance requirements of other interpreting specialties
- Interpreters for the deaf (the certification credentials by RID are valid for 4 years; 80 CE hours are required)
- Court interpreters (state certification requirements regarding credential validity vary from 1-3 years; 9-30 CE hours are required; various work/interpreting requirements)
Research on deterioration of interpreting skills
Commissioners conduct regular review of research on acquiring and maintaining interpreting skills. The current understanding is that interpreting skills, especially simultaneous, deteriorate if not utilized regularly.Importance of Feedback
Healthcare interpreting profession differs from other interpreting specialties in several aspects, including being more “closed” to observation by peers and colleagues due to confidentiality requirements specific to health care provision. For this reason, it is important, especially of interpreters of languages of low instance (aka limited diffusion), that interpreters have opportunities to receive feedback about their interpreting skills. This is one of the reasons CCHI requires at least 4 hours of continuing education to be performance-based. Additionally, CoreCHI-Performance (CoreCHI-P) certificants, whose interpreting skills in the Language Other Than English (LOTE) were not directly tested, are required to complete at least one hour of continuing education that is performance-based and specific to their LOTE.
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Hours of Work
Have 40 hours of work experience as a medical interpreter, within a four-year renewal cycle.
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Continuing Education (CE)
Complete 32 hours of CE in healthcare interpreting, with a minimum of 4 CE hours in performance based training every four-year cycle.
