The short answer: the NHA’s Certified Patient Care Technician/Assistant (CPCT/A) exam moves to a new test plan on January 13, 2027. The 2025 test plan replaces the outgoing 2018 plan: the exam’s shape does not change — still 100 scored questions plus 20 pretest, still two hours, still a passing standard of scaled 390 — but the domain weights shift, most noticeably Infection Control growing from 11% to 16% of the exam. Which plan your exam follows depends entirely on your test date. This page explains the two-plan window and how to prepare for the right one.
What is changing on the CPCT/A exam in 2027?
The CPCT/A exam is built from an NHA test plan derived from a job task analysis. The 2025 analysis produced a revised plan, and the NHA set January 13, 2027 as the launch date for exams built on it. Study materials for the new plan were released October 7, 2026. The NHA itself characterizes the revision as minimal impact to domains and content areas — the five domains are the same five, with adjusted weights and one renamed domain.
How do the 2018 and 2025 test plans compare?
| Domain | 2018 plan (exams through Jan 12, 2027) | 2025 plan (exams from Jan 13, 2027) |
|---|---|---|
| Patient Care | 45% | 43% |
| Compliance, Safety, and Professional Responsibility | 20% | 19% |
| Infection Control | 11% | 16% |
| Phlebotomy → Phlebotomy and Nonblood Specimen Collection | 14% | 12% |
| EKG | 10% | 10% |
The practical read: Infection Control is worth roughly half again as much of your score as it was, Patient Care remains the dominant domain by a wide margin, and EKG holds steady. A study plan built on the old weights under-prepares you in exactly one place — infection control.
Which test plan will my exam follow?
- Testing before January 13, 2027: your exam follows the outgoing 2018 test plan, with the weights in the middle column above.
- Testing on or after January 13, 2027: your exam follows the 2025 test plan. There is no pilot or phase-in scoring period — the new plan simply governs from that date.
- Retaking after a near miss: if you fail an attempt within 30 days before the launch and retest afterward, your retest is on the new version. A failure in late December means your January retest is a 2025-plan exam.
What is not changing?
- Length and time: 100 scored questions + 20 unscored pretest questions, two hours, under both plans.
- Passing standard: a scaled score of 390 on the NHA’s 200–500 scale, under both plans. It is a scaled score, not a percentage.
- The credential itself: same certification, same eligibility routes — including the provisional route, whose diploma window the NHA extended to 18 months in October 2026.
How PassProfessor handles the change
Our Certified Patient Care Technician/Assistant Exam Prep bank is built to the 2025 test plan — the plan governing exams from January 13, 2027 — and the program page says so plainly, because the honest answer matters here: if your exam is scheduled before January 13, 2027, you are preparing for the 2018 plan, and this program is not the right fit for that date. Candidates testing on or after January 13 get a bank weighted exactly the way their exam is weighted. Our CPCT/A exam guide carries the same two-plan explanation alongside eligibility and scheduling detail.
Start with the free sample
If your date is January 13, 2027 or later, start with the CPCT/A free sample questions — it is drawn at the 2025 plan’s weights, Infection Control included at its new 16%.
More exam changes to know about
Exams change on announced dates, and preparation should change with them. PassProfessor tracks the announced changes across the catalog: