How to Become a Certified Medicaid Planner

Long-Term Care Medicaid planning is a specialized field. The rules on income, assets, spouses, gifts and trusts are complicated, and they change. The Certified Medicaid Planner™ (CMP™) credential was created so that professionals who do this work could show they meet a published standard of knowledge and ethics. This guide explains, step by step, what it takes to earn the credential: who can qualify, the education and experience rules, the exam, the ethics pledge, and what a CMP must do to keep the credential.

If you want to know what a CMP does for a family, how to check a planner’s status, or how a CMP compares to an elder law attorney, start with What is a Certified Medicaid Planner?

Figures change periodically. Double-check current amounts before relying on them.

The short version

To become a Certified Medicaid Planner, a person must:

Meet an education requirement, through one of four pathways. Some pathways need a degree and some do not.
Meet an experience requirement: at least two years of full-time work in a Medicaid-related field within the six years before certification.
Agree to the CMP™ Ethical Principles and accept the board’s disciplinary process.
Apply and pay the application fee, with proof of education and experience.
Pass a proctored, 160-question exam, answering at least 104 questions correctly.
Keep the credential current by paying an annual fee, completing continuing education, and recertifying every three years.

The credential is awarded by the CMP™ Governing Board, a private certifying body. It is not a government license. The rest of this guide walks through each step.

Who awards the credential

The CMP Governing Board runs the certification program. According to the board, its goal is to promote high standards of care and ethical practice in Medicaid planning. It does this by setting standards of qualification and practice and by giving a certification exam that tests the knowledge and skills a Medicaid planner needs.

The board awards the title “Certified Medicaid Planner™” and the letters “CMP™” to people who meet its education, experience, ethics and exam requirements. A CMP also agrees to be subject to the board’s discipline.

CMPs come from many backgrounds, including law, nursing homes and social work, care management, financial services, accounting and Medicaid casework.

Step 1: Meet the education requirement

The board recognizes that many people who do Medicaid planning come from fields that do not require a degree. So it allows the education requirement to be met in one of four pathways:

Pathway	What it takes
1. Advanced degree	A law degree (J.D. or equivalent), or a master’s degree in accounting, health financing or social work
2. Associate or bachelor’s degree plus experience	The degree, plus two years of full-time work in a Medicaid planning field within the previous six years
3. Professional license or CFP® plus experience	A life and health insurance license in at least one state, a securities license (such as Series 6, 7, 63, 65 or 66), or the Certified Financial Planner® designation in good standing, plus two years of full-time work in a Medicaid planning field within the previous six years
4. Experience only	Four years of full-time work in a Medicaid planning field within the previous six years

The board counts law, finance and social work or geriatric care management among the Medicaid planning fields for these pathways.

What counts as full-time. The board defines full-time as more than 35 hours a week. The work does not have to be continuous. Someone with only part-time experience (under 35 hours a week) needs at least four years of part-time experience within the last six years.

Proof. Acceptable proof of education includes college transcripts or degrees.

Step 2: Meet the experience requirement

Separately from the education pathways, every applicant needs at least two years of full-time work within the six years before certification in one of these fields:

Medicaid program administration, such as a Medicaid caseworker, specialist, supervisor or program administrator;
Law, such as a lawyer or paralegal;
Finance, such as a financial advisor, banker, stockbroker, insurance agent or funeral counselor;
Accounting, such as a CPA, enrolled agent or accountant;
Care management or social work, such as a geriatric care manager, Medicaid specialist, health care financing professional, long-term care underwriter, or nursing home social worker or administrator.

The same part-time rule applies: four years of part-time work within the last six years.

Proof. Acceptable proof of experience includes proof of employment or a license in a related field. The application asks for each qualifying job and an employer or contact person, so board staff can check the experience.

Timing. The experience requirement does not have to be met before the exam. But if it is not met by the time the candidate passes, the credential is not awarded until the requirement is fully met.

Step 3: Agree to the ethics rules

Ethics is a core part of the credential. The board created a CMP Ethics Council, which wrote the CMP™ Ethical Principles, a set of ethical principles and rules of professional responsibility.

Every applicant must agree, as part of the application, to uphold these principles. This is a condition both for becoming certified and for staying certified.
Every applicant must also agree to be subject to the CMP™ Disciplinary Process.
A breach of the ethical standards can lead to discipline, including revocation of the CMP designation.

For families, this is one of the most meaningful parts of the credential: a CMP has made a written commitment to a code of conduct and can lose the designation for breaking it.

Step 4: Apply and pay the fee

To apply, a candidate completes the board’s CMP application form and sends it to the board, along with:

the application fee, listed by the board as $450;
proof of education and experience, which can be sent with the application or afterward.

The board will not schedule the exam until all required documents are received. Once the application, fee and proof are complete, the candidate receives instructions for taking the exam.

We did not find a separate exam fee in the board’s published materials. The board notes that fees are subject to change.

Step 5: Prepare for the exam

After all application requirements are met, the board sends each candidate a study guide with 20 sample questions and the reasoning behind each correct answer. The guide is meant to show the style of the questions, not to cover every topic.

The exam was built from a job analysis and test specification report prepared by an outside testing firm. The published blueprint lists 15 subject areas and the share of the exam given to each:

Subject area	Share of exam
Income eligibility	10.6%
Asset-eligibility strategies	10.0%
Annuities and promissory notes	10.0%
General asset-eligibility rules	8.1%
Divestments (transfers and gifts)	8.1%
Homestead and the family farm	8.1%
Trusts	7.5%
Medicaid planning background and rationale	6.9%
Community spouse asset rules	6.9%
Applying for Medicaid	5.6%
Post-eligibility issues	5.0%
Estate recovery	4.4%
Medicaid eligibility assessment and planning	3.8%
Advocacy opportunities	3.1%
Veterans (VA) benefits	1.9%

Many of these topics have their own guides on this site, such as the five-year look-back and how to apply.

Step 6: Take the exam

Here is how the board describes the exam:

Length: 160 multiple-choice questions.
Time: 3 hours, unless accommodations have been arranged.
Passing score: 65 percent, which means at least 104 correct answers.
Where: at a local testing site with a professional proctor. Candidates choose from a list of approved testing centers, most at major universities. The board says 90 percent of the population is within a two-hour drive of one, and a candidate can ask for a closer center.
Format: in English and closed-book, though a standard formula sheet is provided. Each candidate is randomly assigned a version of the exam.
Results: the computer reports the score immediately when the exam is finished.

If a candidate fails. The candidate gets one more chance, which must be taken within six weeks of the failed exam. Otherwise, the candidate must wait six months from the last failed exam and re-apply. A retake uses a different version of the exam.

Step 7: Keep the credential current

Passing the exam is not the end. To keep using the title, a CMP must meet the board’s renewal standards:

Pay the annual certification fee, listed by the board as $350 a year.
Recertify every three years by submitting a completed recertification application.
Complete 20 hours of continuing education every three years.

Continuing education rules. Of the 20 hours, 2 must be on Medicaid planning ethics. The other 18 should include at least 2 hours in each of four major areas:

Medicaid structure: laws, rules and procedures;
Trusts: creation, use and taxation;
Financial services: annuities and life insurance;
Medicaid advocacy: fair hearings, administrative appeals and courts.

The board does not run courses itself, and it does not endorse any particular provider. A CMP must show a certificate of attendance listing the subject and hours. The board says it would like to see about 6 hours of education per year, and no less than 20 hours over three years.

Renewal timing. The renewal deadline lines up with the date the CMP passed the exam. The board sends a notice six months before the recertification deadline, showing the approved hours on record.

How long does it take?

The board does not publish a single timeline, because it depends on where a person is starting. A rough way to think about it:

Experience is the longest part. Every candidate needs at least two years of full-time work in a qualifying field within the last six years. People using the experience-only pathway need four years.
The application stage depends on how quickly the candidate gathers transcripts and proof of employment. The exam is not scheduled until everything is in.
Study time varies by background. Someone who already handles Medicaid applications every day may need less preparation than an accountant or financial advisor who is new to the rules.
The exam itself takes up to three hours, with the score reported right away.
After passing, the credential is awarded once the experience requirement is fully met.

For a professional who already has the needed degree or license and two years in the field, the main remaining steps are the application, studying and the exam.

What this means for families

When you see the letters CMP after a planner’s name, it means that person has:

met the board’s education and experience standards;
passed a 160-question exam covering the full range of Long-Term Care Medicaid planning topics;
agreed in writing to the CMP Ethical Principles and to the board’s discipline;
committed to ongoing education, including ethics, to keep the credential.

That is why we encourage families facing a nursing home or home care decision to consider working with a Certified Medicaid Planner. The credential does not replace a law license. A CMP who is not an attorney cannot give legal advice or draft legal documents, and many CMPs work alongside attorneys for that part of the work. Learn more in What is a Certified Medicaid Planner?, Benefits of working with a CMP and Questions to ask a CMP before hiring.

You can check whether a planner currently holds the credential with the CMP Governing Board, the organization that grants the credential. The board says it will verify whether any individual is currently certified.

Last updated for 2026. General information only, not legal or financial advice. Medicaid Answers is a free educational resource published by Medicaid Answers Foundation.