CHAA exam in 6 weeks — realistic study plan with a gap in financial counseling?
I've been working in patient access for about three years and finally decided to sit for the CHAA. My manager and the department chair both pushed me to go for it this cycle, but now that I'm actually looking at the content outline I'm not sure six weeks is enough time.
The areas that worry me most are financial counseling and insurance verification. In my day-to-day I handle a lot of pre-registration and scheduling, but the billing side isn't something I touch regularly. I've set aside about 1.5 hours each weeknight and 3 hours on Saturdays, which works out to roughly 52 hours of study time total.
Has anyone gone into this with a content gap and still passed? The passing score is 70%, which sounds manageable, but I've heard the financial portion is weighted heavily. I'd love to hear from people who've taken it recently about which sections actually showed up the most.
Don't underestimate the patient satisfaction and communication section. It seems soft but there were more questions on it than I anticipated. Good luck, 6 weeks with your experience level should be fine.
I'd prioritize HIPAA and revenue cycle fundamentals over anything else. My exam felt like maybe 30% was directly billing and insurance. The rest was patient communication, compliance, and registration workflows which you probably already know well. Passed on my first attempt at 79%.
Your study hours sound solid. I did less — maybe 38 hours over 5 weeks — and scraped through at 71%. The financial section tripped me up more than I expected though.
Six weeks is enough if you're already working in patient access. I had about 4 years of experience and studied around 40 hours total — passed with a 76%. The financial counseling piece had a decent number of questions but they weren't impossibly deep.