Mississippi Nurse Practitioner CE Requirements

• The APRN certificate renews with the RN license, September–December of even-numbered years.
• The certification period runs Jan 1 of the odd year through Dec 31 of the even year.

• Maintaining national certification in your designated practice area satisfies the general CE requirement — a certified PMHNP keeping ANCC certification current meets it.
• Routine renewal has no 40-hour quota - maintaining national certification satisfies the general CE requirement, plus 5 controlled-substance contact hours per certification period. The 40 contact hours (including 5 controlled-substance hours) applies only when reinstating a LAPSED state certification. Stat headline should not be '40 hours'.

• No standalone pharmacology hour quota beyond the controlled-substance requirement below.
• Advanced pharmacology is covered in the graduate APRN education required for state certification; the current rules attach no additional pharmacology course prerequisite to controlled-substance prescriptive authority (application, fee, and DEA registration are required).
• Older rules required 2 hours in pharmacology of controlled substances for prescribers; that has been superseded and absorbed by the current 5-hour controlled-substance mandate.

• At least 5 contact hours of CE directly related to controlled substances per state certification period — required of ALL APRNs, whether or not they hold controlled-substance prescriptive authority.
• Certificates are uploaded as PDFs at renewal.
• New APRN graduates within the past two years are exempt — first renewal only.
• DEA registrants: one-time 8-hour federal DEA MATE Act training in addition.

• The 40-hour figure in the Board's administrative code applies only to reinstating a lapsed state certification (and must be documented in addition to national certification); it is not a routine renewal quota.
• The 5-hour controlled-substance requirement is the notable Mississippi-specific obligation for PMHNPs.

Official sources