The CMAA exam covers the front office of a medical practice: medical terminology and health records, communication and professionalism, HIPAA and medical law, scheduling, patient check-in and insurance, billing and the revenue cycle, and office administration.
Exam format at a glance
| Format | 135 questions (110 scored, 25 unscored pretest) in 2 hours 15 minutes, computer-based. |
| Cost | NHA lists the exam fee on its website — check NHA for current pricing. |
| Scoring | Scaled score from 200 to 500; 390 or higher is passing. NHA does not publish a percent-correct equivalent, so practice scores here are an estimate, not a prediction of your scaled score. |
| Validity | Renewed every two years with continuing education, per NHA's renewal requirements. |
Who this exam is for
- Students finishing a medical administrative assistant program
- Front-office and reception staff seeking certification
- Career changers entering health care administration
How to actually study for it
- Communication and patient encounter are the two largest domains — practice handling difficult patients and verifying insurance.
- Know HIPAA: what counts as PHI, minimum necessary, permitted disclosures and penalty tiers.
- Learn the scheduling types (wave, modified wave, time-specified, double, open, block).
- Understand copays, coinsurance, deductibles, ABNs, EOBs and the birthday rule.
Where to go next
Start with the free 10-question diagnostic to see where you actually stand, or go straight to the one-page CMAA cheat sheet. The full CMAA practice exam covers every domain at the real exam's weighting, with every answer explained.