The International Commission on Health Care Certification™ (ICHCC®) is proud of its heritage, being the oldest and largest certification agency in the United States and Canada for Life Care Planning and in the United States for Medicare Set-aside Consultants and allocators.
For the convenience of the reader, this Certified Geriatric Care Manager™ page provides links to pages pertinent to the CGCM® credential. You will find direct access links to the CGCM® application page, the CGCM® examination page, and the CGCM® recertification page. Please click on the appropriate menu button for the item you need.
Purpose
The Certified Geriatric Care Manager™ (CGCM®) credential is dedicated to the credentialing of rehabilitation and health and human services professionals, as well as elder care attorneys and paralegals who provide case/ care management services to elderly individuals with health and/or disability issues. This credential assesses one's knowledge of care planning and care management principles and practices for public persons who are defined by the U.S. government standards as meeting elderly criteria, as well as those elderly persons who have a disability. The CGCM® credential is an ideal credential for Certified Life Care Planners™ (CLCP®), Canadian Certified Life Care Planners™ (CCLCP™), and rehabilitation counselors who wish to expand their practices.
Qualifications
The certification candidate must have attended and completed an ICHCC-approved 40-hour CGCM training program and any one of the educational/degree criteria before being eligible to sit for the CGCM® examination. ICHCC-approved training programs are posted under Training and then Approved Training Programs. The ICHCC® requires the following criteria to be met by all candidates applying to sit for the CGCM® examination.
1. Each non-nurse candidate must have at the minimum a bachelor's degree in a related field of health care, rehabilitation, gerontology, health care administration, case management, or law with the exception of nurses and paralegals. Diploma and degreed nurses are eligible as are paralegals with 3 years of experience or those with a paralegal certificate or degree, This certification is also appropriate for occupational and physical therapists as well as attorneys working in the field of Elder Care Law.
2. Each candidate must have courses or training in areas of Gerontology to include:
a. Geriatric Care Management and Case Management Methodology and Concepts.
b. Functional and Psychological Aspects of Aging
c. Client/Patient Assessment
d. Ethical, Legal, and Financial Issues in Older Adult Care Management
e. Late Life Relocation, Facility Living, and Placement Issues
f. Care Planning, Technology, and Ongoing Care Monitoring
g. Working in Different CGM Settings and Private Practice
3. Each candidate must document at least one year of clinical experience in the field of gerontology to include any one of the following:
a. Patient/client interviews, client assessment
b. Care Plan development, monitoring, and evaluation
c. Referral of formal and informal services
d. Administration of a health care facility
e. Work in Elder Care Law or in the field of Gerontology
Final approval of any applications with ambiguity regarding training and/or experience will be left to the discretion of the ICHCC® following a thorough review of the respective applications. The opinion of the ICHCC® is final. Each candidate must hold an entry-level academic degree or certificate/diploma for their profession.
Recertification
For additional information concerning the renewal process, please review the ICHCC® Practice Standards and Guidelines, pages 16 through 22. The guidelines can be found under "About Us" in the top horizontal menu bar as well as in several additional locations on the website.
Approved Renewal CEU Hours for all ICHCC® Certifications can be found by choosing "HOME" in the top menu bar of the ICHCC® website and then choosing "News and Events", which lists approved CEU hours, as well as the "Google Calendar" that posts all approved CEU hours. In addition, the Geriatric Care Management Institute as well as AAACEUS offers a variety of ICHCC® approved CEU hours.
Your CGCM® renewal application can be emailed to the ICHCC® (
You may also pay your renewal fee on the ICHCC® website by choosing the Shopping Cart icon in the top right-hand corner of the page.
The ICHCC® certification maintenance program extends the status of the CGCM® credential at three (3) year intervals. Options for renewal are the same as they are for the CLCP®/CCLCP™ and MSCC™ credentials and include:
Option One: Documentation of 15 clock hours of pre-approved and post-approved education
Option Two: Re-examination (Please note that if the certificant's credential is expired, re-examination is not an option.)
Option Three: A six-month extension
The option one renewal requirement is a total of 15 clock hours of approved education/training for each three-year period. 5 of the 15 hours need to be in ethics. Documentation is required to validate that the education or training has been successfully completed in one or more of the focus areas related to geriatric case management. For additional information on the renewal process, please review pages 16 - 22 in the ICHCC® Practice Standards and Guidelines. The guidelines can be found under "About Us" which is located in the top horizontal menu bar of the website.
Option One
Submit documentation of 15 hours of pre-approved education. If a course was pre-approved, the CGCM® professional only needs to send the attendance verification and the CGCM® renewal form. The fee is $300. If the CGCM® professional attended a program that was not approved for CGCM® hours, the required documentation must be submitted and is subject to review. This includes an attendance verification/certificate of completion as well as information on the training such as a course brochure or course agenda. The fee for recertification increases to $350 regardless of whether or not there is just one program or 10 or more programs that do not qualify as "pre-approved" by the ICHCC®.
Option Two
Re-examination. The fee is $795 for the examination fee and for the certification renewal. (If a certificant's credential has already expired, re-examination is not an option.)
Extensions
If the renewal candidate does not desire to retest but also lacks the necessary 30 hours of CEUs, then the candidate can apply for an extension. This is available to CGCM® candidates who have completed and submitted 5 of the 15 hours required for maintenance. Each extension is granted for six (6) months. Each 6-month extension fee is $200.
