Maine Nurse Practitioner CE Requirements

Renewal cycle

2 years (biennial; APRN renews concurrently with the RN license)

Total CE hours

50 contact hours per 2-year period of continuing education in nursing, medicine, or allied health in the practice area for which the individual is approved as an APRN, plus evidence of current national certification (Board of Nursing Chapter 8 rules; attested under oath, subject to random/targeted audit; documentation kept for two renewal periods).

Pharmacology CE

No recurring pharmacology-hour quota per renewal — the 50 hours must be in the APRN's practice area but are not pharm-specific. Pharmacology requirements are entry/reactivation gates: 45 contact hours (or 3 credits) of pharmacology for initial prescriptive approval; 15 contact hours of pharmacology if the APRN has not prescribed in the past 2 years (45 hours if not in the past 5 years) before resuming prescribing (Chapter 8, Section 6).

Controlled-substance CE

3 hours of opioid-medication-prescribing education every 2 years for APRNs who prescribe opioids (Maine's opioid prescriber CE law, PL 2015 ch. 488 framework; commonly folded into the 50-hour total). Federal one-time 8-hour DEA MATE training also applies to DEA registrants.

Good to know

50-hour and pharmacology (45/15-hour) provisions read directly from the official Chapter 8 rule PDF text. The 3-hour opioid CE for opioid prescribers was corroborated by multiple reputable CE sources and Maine's prescriber CE law but not read verbatim from a board page — treat that single field as medium. A PMHNP not prescribing opioids may not need the opioid hours.

Official sources