Joint Announcement Regarding CoARC Policy 13

May 14, 2014

On January 15th of this year, the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC) and the National Board for Respiratory Care (NBRC) released a joint statement regarding the discontinuation of CoARC’s Policy 13.

Policy 13 was created to allow accredited baccalaureate degree programs the ability to grant special certificates of completion, thus allowing students to apply for the CRT and/or RRT Practitioner credentialing exams after completion of science, general academic and respiratory care coursework commensurate with the requirements for an associate degree in their state/region.

Subsequent to this announcement, the AARC received a number of letters of concern about this decision and its potential effect on students from these programs. These concerns were communicated to CoARC and the NBRC. As such, and in an effort not to penalize students currently matriculated in programs that hold the Special Certificate eligibility, the CoARC and NBRC have announced that while Policy 13 will still terminate on Dec. 31, 2014, the NBRC voted to recognize the Special Certificate for qualifying students currently enrolled in CoARC authorized programs until December 31, 2015.