Adult Critical Care Specialty (ACCS) - The National Board for Respiratory Care (2024)

You may apply online or submit a paper application and fee once you have met the admission requirements.

If applying and paying by credit card online, your application is processed immediately. If mailing your application and fee, your application will be processed within approximately five to seven business days. An email confirmation notice of eligibility will be sent to you, which includes a website and toll-free telephone number for you to contact to schedule an examination appointment.

If your eligibility cannot be confirmed, you will be notified by email of the additional information required to complete your application.

Yes, AARC MEMBERS are eligible for a one-time, $40 discount when applying for the first time for the following NBRC examinations:

– CSE
– PFT
– NPS
– SDS
– ACCS

You must register for the AARC Member Discount through the AARC website at https://www.aarc.org/membership/get-a-discount-on-nbrc-exam/. AARC will send an email after registering for the discount containing instructions about accessing the NBRC’s online examination application. You must begin the application process from the link in the instructions you receive from the AARC by email. The discount must be used at the time you submit your application and payment and will not be retroactively applied.

A free ACCS practice examination is available so you may familiarize yourself with the content and types of questions that will be included on the credentialing exam. This practice examination has 50 items and is shorter than the actual credentialing exam.

The examination committee and the NBRC Board of Trustees agreed that a practice examination that is only a third as long as the actual exam would expedite the process of creating live exams. The practice examination covers the content domains and cognitive item types in the same proportions as the live examinations and was developed by the same committee as the full exam.

ATTENTION – By accessing this examination, you agree not to reproduce, distribute, disclose, offer for sale, or sell any portion of these copyrighted National Board for Respiratory Care, Inc. materials in any format. Failure to comply with these terms may result in disciplinary action by the National Board for Respiratory Care, Inc. including loss of your credential, losing your ability to retake an examination, and/or legal action related to copyright infringement.

ACCS Free Practice Examination

If you are assessing your preparedness for the ACCS Examination and feel you need more guidance than the free practice exam, there is a Self-Assessment Examination (SAE) available for purchase. The ACCS SAE has the same number of questions as the credentialing examination.

ATTENTION – By accessing this examination, you agree not to reproduce, distribute, disclose, offer for sale, or sell any portion of these copyrighted National Board for Respiratory Care, Inc. materials in any format. Failure to comply with these terms may result in disciplinary action by the National Board for Respiratory Care, Inc. including loss of your credential, losing your ability to retake an examination, and/or legal action related to copyright infringement.

To begin your preparation in an informed and organized manner, you should know what to expect from the actual examination in terms of content areas tested. The detailed content outlines present the specific patient care settings and each of the content areas. The outlines can be used to get a general impression of the examination, and with closer inspection, can give you specific study direction. For example, you can determine the relative importance of each content area on the examination by reviewing the number of questions in each section.

ACCS Detailed Content Outline – Effective June 2018

As indicated in the table below, candidates may attempt the Therapist Multiple-Choice and Clinical Simulation Examinations three times, after which the candidate will be required to wait a minimum of 120 days between any subsequent attempt. For the specialty credentialing examinations, including Pulmonary Function Technology, Neonatal/Pediatric Specialty, Sleep Disorders Specialty, and Adult Critical Care Specialty Examinations, candidates may attempt the exam two times, after which the candidate will be required to wait at least 180 days before sitting for the exam again.

As the respiratory profession continues to grow and flourish, we feel this is an important and necessary policy to implement in order to ensure caregiver competency and patient safety for years to come.

When you apply for an examination, your eligibility records are maintained for one year following application regardless of whether or not you schedule an exam. If you don’t actively pursue credentialing, your eligibility records are inactivated after one year. If you are a candidate whose records are inactivated, you must reapply as a new candidate and meet the most current admissions requirements to be eligible for the exam. Please note: if you have passed one of the examinations to earn the RRT Credential (TMC or CSE) and allow your application records to become inactivated, your passing performance will be nullified, so we encourage you to pursue credentialing in a timely manner after applying and receiving a confirmation of eligibility notice.

To support you through the entire process, we are committed to providing appropriate notices to candidates before their application records are inactivated, so we also encourage you to keep your contact information current with the NBRC.

There are two sets of secondary test specifications. One set is for items that will engage you in thinking about ethics of the situation. The other set is defined by patient condition.

Addressing ethics content is important for this examination and credential. As an adult critical care specialist, you will engage in situations that include ethical elements, so part of producing a relevant examination is mirroring those situations. In contrast to a CRT Examination, which should assess whether a therapist is safe and competent to provide general respiratory care, ethical considerations are a part of what it means to be recognized as a specialist. Therefore, we have determined you must have a strong grasp on ethical issues before achieving the ACCS specialty credential.

Because the ACCS Examination is a specialty exam, it is more strongly oriented to clinical situations and less toward the technical elements of respiratory care. Without secondary specifications, we know there is a risk of letting one test form emphasize one type of patient condition too much or differently than another test form. For example, one test form could have five items about patients with congestive heart failure while another form might not include any. Therefore, secondary specifications are critical to aligning examination content with activities of specialists and standardizing test forms among candidates.

We conducted a job analysis study to ensure the examination content would be job-related and based on tasks performed by practitioners in this specialty area. To rate the importance of job tasks, we sent several thousand surveys to individuals who are involved in the delivery of care to patients in adult critical care settings.

In developing our ACCS program, we sought input from a variety of organizations representing adult critical care, and we collaborated with other organizations that have a vested interest in protecting the public and improving care for adult critical care patients. Because of this effort, our ACCS program is well respected and supported by several professional organizations, including the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC), the American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST), the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) and the American Thoracic Society (ATS).