The Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center certifies across every licence level in the specialty, which is unusual and reflects how hospice teams actually work.
The credentials
- CHPN — certified hospice and palliative nurse, for experienced registered nurses.
- ACHPN — advanced certified hospice and palliative nurse, for advanced practice registered nurses, meaning nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists.
- CHPPN — certified hospice and palliative pediatric nurse.
- CHPLN — certified hospice and palliative licensed nurse, for licensed practical and vocational nurses.
- CHPNA — certified hospice and palliative nursing assistant.
Two further credentials, in hospice and palliative care administration and in perinatal loss care, are maintained through recertification only.
Why the structure covers the whole team
Hospice care is delivered by a team in which the nursing assistant may spend more hours with a dying patient than anyone else, and the practical nurse may be the licensed clinician making most of the visits.
Certifying at every level is a recognition that end-of-life care is a body of knowledge rather than a set of tasks delegated downward — and it is one of the few places in nursing where the assistant tier has a specialty credential of its own. See nursing assistants and licensed practical and vocational nurses.
Eligibility
The registered nurse credential requires an active unrestricted licence and substantial practice in hospice and palliative care, generally described as at least two years of registered nurse experience with recent practice in the specialty.
The advanced practice credential is restricted to nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists who completed an accredited graduate programme, and requires documented recent hospice or palliative practice hours at advanced practice level — commonly stated as at least 500 hours in the previous twelve months.
Check the centre's current eligibility criteria before applying; requirements are set there and are specific by credential.
Pediatric hospice is genuinely separate
The pediatric credential exists because caring for a dying child is not caring for a dying adult on a smaller scale. It is a small field with its own symptom management, its own conversations, and its own effect on the people who do it. See pediatric nursing.
What it is worth
Hiring, in hospice agencies and hospital palliative care teams.
Credibility in conversations that carry weight. A large part of the work is telling a family what dying is going to look like and helping them decide what they want. Certification does not teach that, but it is the available evidence that a nurse has practised it deliberately.
Portability across settings. Hospice work happens in homes, nursing facilities, inpatient units, and dedicated hospice houses, and the credential reads the same in all of them. See hospice and palliative nursing, home health nursing, and long-term and post-acute care nursing.
Related
Sources
- Certification — Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center, on the five active credentials and the two maintained by recertification only. Accessed September 9, 2026.
- Hospice — Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, on the benefit structure the specialty works within. Accessed September 9, 2026.