Completely free
No account walls, no upsell
Free exam prep for every test — 20,000+ exam pages and 2.4M+ practice questions.
Open free CMAA prep resources ↗Exam facts & prep options
Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA)
The Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA) exam is an NCCA-accredited national certification exam owned and administered by the National Healthcareer Association (NHA) covering front-office medical administration: foundational knowledge, communication and professionalism, medical law/ethics/compliance, scheduling, patient encounter, billing and revenue cycle, and practice administrative procedures. The exam is delivered at schools/institutions, PSI testing centers, or via live remote proctoring; the certification renews every two years with 10 CE credits.
Official exam siteJump to prep options ↓
Questions110 scored items plus 25 pretest items (135 total)
Testing time2 hours + 15 minutes
ScoringScaled passing score of 390 or higher required (applies to all NHA exams)
Exam feeUSD 134 exam application fee (paid per attempt)
Prep options
Study resources for CMAA
Independent prep
Courses and study resources
Exam overview
What to know before choosing your prep
- Who runs it
- NHA
- Category
- Medical Assisting
- Current version
- CMAA test plan published 2021, based on the results of a job analysis completed in 2021; this is the test plan currently linked from NHA's official CMAA exam preparation page as mapping the current exam
- Where it applies
- United States — national
- Exam languages
- English
- Score scale
- 200–500 scaled score
- Testing provider
- PSI (test centers) plus live remote proctoring; also administered on-site at schools and employer/institution test locations
- Format
- Multiple-choice exam administered under proctored conditions; taken at your school/institution, a PSI testing center, or through live remote proctoring
- Availability
- Exam application submitted online anytime through the NHA account portal; exam taken by appointment at a school, PSI testing center, or via live remote proctoring
- Results
- For online CMAA exams, official certification results posted to the candidate's NHA account page within two days of scoring the test
- Remote testing
- Available
Exam structure
110 scored multiple-choice items across seven domains: Foundational Knowledge (10 items), Communication and Professionalism (21), Medical Law, Ethics, and Compliance (17), Scheduling (16), Patient Encounter (21), Billing and Revenue Cycle (11), and Medical Practice Administrative Procedures and Logistics (14); plus 25 unscored pretest items.
Where rules vary
A uniform U.S. national certification exam; individual employers and state requirements may recognize the credential differently, but the exam itself is identical nationwide.
Eligibility
Possess (or be scheduled to earn within 12 months) a high school diploma or GED/equivalency, plus either completion of a medical administrative assistant training or education program within the last 5 years, or 1 year of supervised work experience in a medical administrative assistant field within the last 3 years (or 2 years within the last 5)
Retake policy
Three attempts total: 30-day waiting period between attempts, paying the full exam price for each retake; after a third failed attempt, must wait one year before taking the exam again