Ohio Nurse Practitioner CE Requirements

• Licenses renew every 2 years (biennial); RN and APRN licenses renew in odd-numbered years.

• APRNs need 48 contact hours total per biennium.
  • 24 hours for the RN license, including at least 1 Category A hour on the Ohio Nurse Practice Act and Board rules
  • 24 additional hours for the APRN license

• At least 12 of the 24 APRN hours must be in advanced pharmacology (OAC 4723-8-10).
  • Applies to APRN-CNP, APRN-CNS, and APRN-CNM
  • Must come from an accredited/board-recognized source

• No standing pharmacology-beyond-12-hours or opioid-specific CE quota for APRN renewal.
• Prescribing APRNs must follow Ohio's opioid-prescribing rules (OAC 4723-9).
• The federal one-time 8-hour MATE Act training applies to DEA registrants.

• No CE is required for the first APRN renewal immediately after initial APRN licensure.
• The CE waiver option available to RNs does not apply to the APRN 24-hour requirement.
• Ohio's Certificate to Prescribe was merged into the APRN license in 2017, so the 12 advanced-pharmacology hours are the prescriptive-authority-linked requirement.

Official sources