CHA Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts

Which CHA This Sheet Covers

"CHA" is a crowded acronym, so here is the scope. This page covers the Certified Hospice Administrator credential from the National Board for Home Care and Hospice Certification (NBHHC), and nothing else. If you want the broader background first, start with What Is CHA Certification? or What Does CHA Stand For?. Everything below is built from the official CHA blueprint and the 2024 NBHHC candidate handbook.

Treat this as a single-page review: skim it the night before you start a study block, again a week before your testing window, and once more on exam morning. For the deeper walkthroughs, the CHA study guide and the domain-by-domain guide expand on each point.

Exam Format at a Glance

Two practical implications follow from that table. First, because there is no guessing penalty, never leave an item blank; eliminate what you can and commit to an answer. Second, with up to 100 questions in 120 minutes, you have a little over a minute per item, so a scenario you cannot resolve in about 90 seconds should be flagged and revisited rather than allowed to eat your clock. For more on how the scoring works, see CHA Passing Score 2026, and for a realistic sense of challenge, How Hard Is the CHA Exam?

Eligibility Routes in One Table

Eligibility is education plus management experience. Hospice-track routes work like this:

The Paperwork Rules People Miss

• You need relevant management or leadership work for at least 12 of the last 48 months.
• You must submit evidence of both education and experience.
• You need 3 healthcare-industry references, with your current employer listed first when applicable.
• Management experience is prorated for the share of your time spent on management duties, so a hybrid clinical-manager role may count for less than its calendar length.

The full eligibility walkthrough lives in CHA Requirements 2026.

2026 Windows, Deadlines and Fees

Initial Certification Costs

• Application fee: US$99
• Examination fee: US$499
• Total: US$598
• The optional CAHSAH administrator course tuition is separate and not included in that total.

For a line-by-line pricing view and the return-on-investment discussion, see CHA Certification Cost 2026 and Is the CHA Certification Worth It?

Domain Weights and What Each Tests

The blueprint has four domains. The weights tell you where your study hours should go.

Add Business Operations and Finance and you get 65% of the exam. If your time is limited, those two domains are where a marginal hour pays off most. The complete domain guide breaks each area into subtopics.

Hospice Concepts to Memorize Cold

The CHA blueprint rewards candidates who can connect operational vocabulary to financial consequences. The concepts that earn their keep on a one-page review:

Utilization and Length of Stay

These two metrics sit at the intersection of Domains 1 and 2. Utilization describes how patients use hospice services, and length of stay describes how long they remain on service. Be ready to reason about what unusually short or unusually long stays imply for operations, for the hospice cap, and for quality review. A question might hand you a scenario about admissions patterns and ask which operational or financial concern it most directly raises.

Levels of Care

Know that hospice care is delivered at defined levels of care and that an administrator must understand when each applies, how care is staffed for each, and how the level delivered shapes both clinical operations and reimbursement. Do not stop at definitions; practice choosing which level fits a described patient situation.

Hospice Cap Concepts

The hospice cap is a recurring Finance topic. Study it as a concept you can apply to a scenario rather than a number to recall: what the cap is meant to limit, which operational patterns put an agency at risk, and what an administrator monitors to avoid surprises. Working through hospice cap practice questions in our practice test is the fastest way to get comfortable with the scenario style.

Cost Reports

Know what a cost report is for, who relies on it, and why accuracy and timeliness matter. Expect questions that ask what an administrator should do with, or about, cost report information rather than how to compute every line.

QAPI

QAPI is the framework for measuring performance and driving improvement. Be able to describe how data collection, analysis, and corrective action fit together, and how leadership is expected to engage with the process.

Volunteer Programs and Nursing-Facility Agreements

Both appear in the high-priority topic list. For volunteers, understand the role the program plays in a hospice and the administrator's responsibility for oversight. For nursing-facility agreements, understand why a hospice needs a written arrangement when it serves patients residing in a facility and what the administrator must ensure about responsibilities on each side.

Renewal Math

Certification lasts 4 years. To renew you need:

• 50 points total
• At least 36 continuing-education contact hours within those points
• No more than 14 other points
• Relevant management or leadership employment for 12 of the preceding 48 months

Start logging continuing-education hours the year you pass, not the year you renew. The 36-hour floor is easiest to hit when it is spread across four years. More on keeping the credential active appears in the CHA certification overview.

A Domain-Ordered Study Sequence

Rather than a generic weekly template, order your weeks by blueprint weight and by how much each domain depends on the one before it. This sample assumes a four-week run before your testing window; stretch it if you need more room, and see the full study guide for longer plans.

Finance follows Operations on purpose: hospice cap and cost-report questions make far more sense once length of stay and levels of care are fluent. Use the CHA practice test for the Week 4 timed sets and for domain-level drills along the way.

CHA vs CHM and Who Hires CHAs

Candidates often ask how the hospice administrator credential relates to the NBHHC's home care management credential, the CHM. Both come from the same board, but they target different settings: the CHA is the hospice administrator credential, while the CHM is aimed at home care management. Choose based on the organization you lead or want to lead, not on which exam seems easier.

Where the Credential Gets Used

The CHA fits people who run or aspire to run hospice programs: administrators, executive directors, and managers or supervisors on the path to those roles. The eligibility routes above reflect that audience, since they are built around years as a supervisor, manager, or administrator. For openings and role titles, see CHA jobs, and for compensation context, the CHA salary guide. This page does not quote salary figures because they vary widely by region, organization size, and role.

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