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Professional healthcare-planning designation

Build specializedhealthcare-planning expertise.

CHCA is an online professional designation for insurance, financial, legal, tax, benefits, and healthcare professionals who want to guide clients through complex healthcare decisions with greater clarity.

Start enrollment Review curriculum and requirements
  • Online and self-paced
  • Practical cases and scenarios
  • Annual active standing
A mature instructor leading a collaborative professional training session

Format

Online or Live Classroom

Self-paced professional learning

Eligibility

2 years

Relevant industry experience

Assessment

85%

Required passing score

Investment

$699

$149 annual enrollment renewal

Why the designation matters

Healthcare decisions are now central to the planning conversation.

Clients are trying to connect retirement timing, Medicare, employer coverage, prescriptions, income, and rising healthcare costs. CHCA helps professionals approach those questions with a broader body of knowledge and a more structured process.

The goal is not to turn every professional into every kind of expert. It is to build the fluency to explain healthcare planning clearly, recognize coordination needs, and keep the consumer at the center.

Explore designation benefits

What professionals learn

A curriculum organized around real client decisions.

Build practical knowledge across coverage, planning factors, and professional responsibility - then apply it through scenarios and cases.

  1. Medicare and coverage

    Medicare rules, enrollment, penalties, benefits coordination, ACA and under-65 coverage, and prescription strategy.

  2. Planning factors

    IRMAA, Medicaid, Social Security, employer coverage, healthcare costs, and the transitions that connect them.

  3. Professional practice

    Ethics, compliance, consumer-first communication, and real-world cases designed for practical application.

What the designation is designed to build

Observable skills for more useful client conversations.

  • Knowledge

    Build healthcare-planning fluency

    Connect technical rules and coverage choices to a broader retirement or family planning conversation.

  • Clarity

    Lead stronger client conversations

    Translate complex information into structured, understandable guidance without losing important context.

  • Context

    Recognize coordination points

    Identify when healthcare decisions may require collaboration with financial, legal, tax, or other professionals.

  • Standard

    Apply a consumer-first framework

    Center education, ethical responsibility, and the client's needs throughout the planning relationship.

Who CHCA is for

One designation across the professions shaping healthcare decisions.

CHCA is designed for experienced professionals whose work already touches retirement, coverage, benefits, health, or family planning.

Eligibility standardAt least two years of relevant industry experience.

  • Insurance

    Go beyond product selection with a broader planning perspective.

  • Financial planning

    Integrate healthcare costs and coverage transitions into retirement conversations.

  • Legal

    Recognize healthcare-planning issues that intersect with client and family decisions.

  • Tax and accounting

    Understand planning factors that can affect Medicare costs and timing.

  • HR and benefits

    Support clearer conversations around employer coverage and major transitions.

  • Healthcare

    Add planning context to the coverage and cost questions patients and families face.

Earn and maintain CHCA

A clear path to active designation status.

Eligibility, education, assessment, and annual enrollment renewal make the standard understandable for professionals and consumers.

  1. Confirm eligibility

    Begin with at least two years of relevant professional experience.

  2. Complete the program

    Work through the online, self-paced curriculum and practical cases.

  3. Pass the assessment

    Earn an 85% passing score to complete the designation requirements.

  4. Maintain active standing

    Renew annually to continue using the CHCA designation and maintain active status.

The program is self-paced. Many participants complete it in approximately four to six weeks, but individual timing varies.

Ready to earn the designation?

Bring greater structure to the healthcare conversations your clients already need.

Review the requirements, understand the investment, and begin enrollment when you are ready.

Start your enrollment Review requirements and cost