Earning an Additional ARRT® Credential: The Postprimary Pathway

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If you’re already certified and registered with the ARRT® organization and are looking to up your professional game by pursuing another credential, then the ARRT® postprimary eligibility pathway is the (path)way to go. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the details of postprimary eligibility, the unique requirements for those pursuing an additional ARRT® credential, and every step of the application process.

If you aren’t ARRT®-certified and registered yet and are aiming to earn your first ARRT® Credential, you’ll want to check out our guide: How To Get ARRT® Certification and Registration: The Primary Pathway.

If you hold a credential from the NMTCB® or the ARDMS®, you might be eligible to use the postprimary pathway. Check out our Who Can Apply section to find out more.

• Who can apply using the ARRT® post-primary pathway?
• What ARRT® credentials can I earn through the post-primary pathway?
• Post-primary Pathway Overview
• Eligibility Requirements for the Post-primary Pathway
• How to Apply for ARRT® Post-primary Certification and Registration
• What if the ARRT® organization processed my application and found me ineligible?
• FAQs

Who can apply using the ARRT® postprimary pathway?

Those who can use the postprimary pathway to earn an ARRT® credential fall into 3 categories.

• Technologists who have already earned an ARRT® credential through the primary pathway.
• In some cases, those holding an ARMDS® or NMTCB® credential can also use this pathway to achieve their first ARRT® credential.
  • If you hold an NMTCB® credential and you wish to pursue an ARRT® credential in CT, MRI, Bone Densitometry, or Vascular Sonography, you can use the postprimary pathway.
  • If you hold an ARDMS® Sonography credential and you are aiming for an ARRT® credential in MRI, Vascular Sonography, or Breast Sonography, you’ll use the postprimary pathway.
• Finally, if your Program Director has permitted you to start logging clinical experience and completing your structured education requirements while you are finishing your educational program, you may be eligible to use the postprimary pathway.

What ARRT® credentials can I earn through the postprimary pathway?

There are 8 postprimary ARRT® credentials you can pursue:

• Bone Densitometry
• Breast Sonography
• Cardiac Interventional Radiography
• Computed Tomography
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
• Mammography
• Vascular Interventional Radiography
• Vascular Sonography*

However, it is important to note that to pursue a post-primary credential, you must hold a credential in the supporting category first. Put another way, the additional ARRT® credentials you are eligible to pursue depend on which credential(s) you already hold.

The chart below explains which credentials meet the supporting category requirements

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Postprimary Pathway Overview

Let’s start with an outline to give you an idea of the stages in the overall process of earning your ARRT® certification and registration:

• Meet the ARRT® educational requirement
  • Supporting Category
  • Structured Education
  • Clinical Experience
• Complete and submit an ARRT® application
  • If you need Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) testing accommodations, request them on your application
• Meet the ARRT® ethics requirement
• Wait to receive your Candidate Status Report (CSR) for your exam window to open
• Meet the exam requirement: Schedule, take, and pass the ARRT® exam in your discipline within 365 days of your exam window opening
• Receive your score report and certification and registration decision

We’ll go over each of these parts in more detail below.

Eligibility Requirements for the Postprimary Pathway

As with primary pathway applicants, those applying through the postprimary pathway must meet three major requirements to earn their additional ARRT® credential: education, ethics, and exam.

Education requirement

The postprimary education requirement has several components.

• Supporting Category Requirement
  You have to hold an ARRT® (or, in some cases, an NMTCB® or ADRMS®) credential in a supporting category, as mentioned above.
• Structured Education Requirement
  Complete 16 hours of structured education (SE) in the 24 months immediately preceding your application. Your 16 hours of SE must:
  • align with the content outlines for the credential you’re pursuing, and
  • include at least one credit from each of the Exam Content Specifications major content categories
    • You can earn the remaining credits from any of the content areas you chose

  Acceptable Structured Education can be:

  • Continuing Education (CE) activities that have been evaluated by the CE approver or state agency and found to meet the ARRT® organization’s requirements for CE
  • Academic courses from institutions accredited by an ARRT®-recognized agency

  Documenting your Structured Education
  You must document your SE activities using the postprimary tool in your ARRT® account:

  • Log in to your account on arrt.org
  • Click Continue on your postprimary checklist
  • Click on Continue Structured Education Documentation
  • Select Add Structured Education.

  Once you’ve documented 16 credits, you can submit them to the ARRT® organization for review. The ARRT® organization will review and approve your submissions within 3 business days, typically.
  Any logged SE activities that fall outside of the 24 months immediately preceding the date you submit your application will be automatically excluded.

• Clinical Experience Requirement
  Perform and document a specific number of clinical procedures, the specific number and type of procedure will depend on which credential you’re pursuing. (You can check the specific number and type of procedures for your discipline here.)
  • This requirement has to be completed no more than 24 months before you submit your application.
  • Procedures logged outside of the 24 months immediately preceding the submission of your application will be automatically excluded.
    • But once you submit your application and receive your exam window, your clinical experience procedures are finalized and will not expire while you await exam day—don’t worry.
  • The number of clinical experience entries you can report for each day is limited and the limits vary by discipline:
    • Bone Densitometry: 15 entries per day
    • Breast Sonography: 9 entries per day
    • Cardiac Interventional Radiography: 8 entries per day
    • Computed Tomography: 9 entries per day
    • MRI: 7 entries per day
    • Mammography: 16 entries per day
    • Vascular Interventional Radiography: 10 entries per day
    • Vascular Sonography: 8 entries per day

  Documenting Your Clinical Experience

  As you complete the required clinical experience procedures for your discipline, log into your ARRT® account and use the clinical experience tool to document and request verification of them.

  Verifiers

  It is your responsibility to choose verifiers for your clinical experience procedures, typically R.T.s® or interpreting physicians. Ask them if they are willing to act as verifiers for your clinical experience requirements. If they agree, they will review the procedures you have logged and either approve or deny the verification request. The ARRT® organization will update your progress page and clinical experience log once your verifier responds.

  You can find out more about what verifiers are required to do by searching for Verifiers in the ARRT® account.

  Supervisors

  Once your clinical procedures have been completed and verified, you need to provide the name and contact information of your supervisor(s). Your supervisor for each facility should be the person or person(s) you report to, and they can be the same person acting as your verifier, or someone else. The supervisor’s role is to verify the entirety of your clinical experience procedures log.

At this point, with your structured education completed and your clinical experience requirements met and confirmed by your verifiers and supervisor(s), you may submit your application. We’ll talk more about the application process below.

Ethics Requirement

The ARRT® organization holds its Registered Technologists® and applicants to a very high standard of ethics and professional conduct. For this requirement, you must demonstrate great moral character as per ARRT® Standards of Ethics. To meet this requirement, you must:

Answer the 3 ethics questions on your application for certification and registration.

• Have you ever been charged with or convicted of a misdemeanor or felony? (This includes court convictions and military courts-martial.)
• Has a regulatory authority or certification board (other than ARRT®) ever done one or more of the following?
  • Denied, revoked, or suspended your professional license, permit, registration, or certification?
  • Placed you on probation (excluding ARRT Continuing Education probation), under a consent agreement, or under a consent order?
  • Allowed voluntary surrender of your professional license, permit, registration, or certification?
  • Subjected you to any conditions or disciplinary actions?
• Have you ever voluntarily withdrawn—or been suspended, dismissed, or expelled—from an educational program you attended to meet ARRT® certification and registration requirements?

If you answer yes to any of the questions, you’ll be asked to provide a written explanation of what happened and provide copies of any supporting documentation.

What to do if you think you have a potential ethics violation:

• If you haven’t applied for ARRT® certification and registration, report the violation when you apply.
• If you have already submitted your application for certification and registration, but haven’t passed the ARRT® exam yet, report the potential violation within 30 days of the incident.
• If you’re already an R.T.®, report the potential violation within 30 calendar days of the incident or at your annual renewal, whichever comes first.

If your report of a potential violation triggers an ethics review, you can still take the ARRT® exam, though your score report may be withheld until the review is finished. Depending on the outcome of the review, your scores might be canceled. Bear in mind that the ethics review process can take a while, a few months, or more, depending on the complexity of the violations you’re reporting. Be patient. The ARRT® Ethics Review Committee notify you of a decision by mail.

Check out our Guide to the ARRT® Standards of Ethics for more information.

Examination requirement

• Pass the ARRT®-conducted exam in your discipline within 3 years of your first exam window opening
  • You have 3 attempts to pass the exam
• You can only apply to take the exam once
  • your structured education requirements have been met and accepted by the ARRT® organization
  • your verifiers and supervisors have signed off on your clinical experience
  • you have met the ethics requirements (on your application)
• You must submit your application to the ARRT® organization (see below) before you can receive an exam window

See our complete Guide to the ARRT® Exam for everything you need to know about how to apply for the exam, how to prepare for it, what you can expect on exam day and important deadlines.

How to Apply for ARRT® Postprimary Certification and Registration

You must submit an application that has to be reviewed and approved by the ARRT® organization before you can schedule your exam. Here’s how you apply:

When to Apply

You can apply for your new ARRT® credential when:

• your structured education requirements have been met and accepted by the ARRT® organization
• your verifiers and supervisors have signed off on your clinical experience

Steps to Applying

Step 1: Ensure you have the appropriate ID before filling out your application.
The name you use on your ARRT® application will be the name on file in the ARRT® organization records and on your Candidate Status Report (CSR). Use your legal name.

When you go to your testing center on exam day, you’ll be asked to present two forms of ID, and these must match the name on your CSR, or you will be turned away and you’ll forfeit your application fee. So be sure you have two valid (unexpired) forms of ID before you fill out your application.

Acceptable Forms of ID

You’ll need at least 1 primary form of ID and 1 secondary form of ID from the list of acceptable forms of ID present below. You can also use 2 primary forms of ID if you choose.

• Primary ID: must be government-issued with an affixed photo and your signature (or military bar code)
  • a driver’s license
  • passport
  • state ID card
  • tribal ID card
  • military ID card
• Secondary ID:must include your name (permanently printed) and your signature.
  • U.S. Social Security card
  • employee ID badge
  • bank or credit card
  • school ID
  • another form of ID from the list of acceptable primary IDs

Step 2: Log in to your ARRT® account.
Access the postprimary documentation tool from your dashboard, and follow the instructions to complete your application.

If you don’t have an ARRT® online account:

If you don’t have an ARRT® account because your supporting credential was issued by the ARDMS® or NMTCB®, fill out an Online Account Access Form to request an account. Then mail the form to the following address:

ARRT
1255 Northland Dr.
St. Paul, MN 55120

If you require ADA testing accommodations, be sure to request them on your application (there will be a question addressing this).

Step 3: Submit your application.

Submit your application and pay the non-refundable application fee.

Postprimary application fees are as follows:

• M, CT, MR, BD, CI, VI, VS, BS, R.R.A.®: $225
• CT, MR, BD, or VS with NMTCB® credential as supporting category: $450
• MR, VS, or BS with ARDMS® as supporting category: $450

After Submitting Your Application

If you did not request ADA accommodations, your Candidate Status Report will be sent to your ARRT® account, and you can schedule your exam starting 24 hours after your CSR has been issued. If you did request accommodations, your CSR will take a bit longer to process.

You have 1 year (365 days) from the start of your exam window to schedule and take your exam.

What if the ARRT® organization processed my application and found me ineligible?

There are a few instances in which you can be found ineligible for ARRT® postprimary certification and registration:

• If you’ve already been deemed eligible and given an exam window, but then the ARRT® organization receives information after the fact that suggests you may be ineligible.
  • In this case, you can still schedule and take the exam, but your scores will be held pending the results of a review.
  • If you’ve already taken the exam and the review finds you to be ineligible, your exam scores will be canceled and you’ll lose your application fee. In this case, if you reapply later and are determined eligible, the canceled exam scores will be counted as one of your 3 attempts.
  • If you haven’t already taken the exam and the review determines you to be ineligible, you won’t be permitted to take the exam and you’ll forfeit your application fee.
• If you were already deemed eligible and took the exam, but the ARRT® organization finds evidence that you were ineligible to do so.
  • In this case, you’ll lose your application fee, your exam score will be canceled, and your certification and registration status will be canceled.
  • If you reapply later and are found eligible, the canceled exam will count as one of your 3 attempts.

How to Appeal an Ineligibility Decision

If you think the ARRT® organization has made an error in determining your eligibility, you can appeal their decision.

To file an appeal, you need to submit an Eligibility Appeal Request Form. On this form, you will be asked to explain why you think the ARRT® organization was wrong to deem you ineligible. Simply follow the instructions on the form and include any supporting documentation you have.

Once you have completed the Eligibility Appeal Request, submit it to the ARRT® organization by fax or by mail.

• Fax: 651-681-3295
• Mail:
  • ARRT, ATTN: Eligibility Appeals
    1255 Northland Drive
    St. Paul, MN 55120