ARRT Certification Requirements: Your Step-by-Step Guide

Pursuing your ARRT certification can be one of the best career decisions you make. It opens a wide variety of career options that are both financially fruitful and fulfilling in a more emotional sense due to the impact you can have on the lives of your patients.

However, it’s not something that just anyone can pursue. At least, not without some prior preparation.

There are a variety of requirements you must meet before you’re able to take the ARRT exam and become certified.

Today, we’re going to go over ARRT certification requirements and some advice to help you succeed.

Understanding the Primary Eligibility Pathway

First and foremost, ARRT is separated into tiers. There’s a primary pathway that consists of a variety of specializations you can pursue, a more advanced tier of specializations you need to have earned your first credential for before pursuing, and finally, you can become a registered radiological assistant.

For the purposes of this guide aimed to help you start your career, we’re going to focus on the primary eligibility pathway’s requirements.

This pathway opens up a variety of career options for you depending on the specific career trajectory you’re pursuing.

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Radiation Therapy
• Radiography
• Vascular Sonography
• Sonography
• Nuclear Medicine Technology

You can choose any of the listed disciplines when pursuing your first ARRT credential, advance along that path with further credentials, or pursue more primary credentials. It all depends on the career path you’ve set out for yourself and how much work you’re willing to put into your education.

Requirements of the Primary Eligibility Pathway

The requirements needed to pursue any of the disciplines we talked about and earn your first ARRT credential are challenging to attain, and you will spend plenty of time working toward your first credential. However, it’s not an impossible task, and it’s extremely accomplishable with enough effort.

Here are the general requirements you’ll need to meet to take the exam for any of the previously mentioned disciplines and their corresponding ARRT exam.

1: Earn a Relevant Associates Degree or Better

Unfortunately, as a highly complex job in the health field, the radiology field isn’t open to those without a formal secondary education. You will need to have an appropriate Associate’s degree before pursuing your ARRT in any of the disciplines we mentioned.

If you’re on the younger side and getting serious about your career, this means that your first step in attaining an ARRT is to pursue your Associate’s degree. Then, you can come back here and continue plotting your course to success.

2: ARRT-Approved Program Completion

Once you have your associate’s degree and have chosen a discipline to start your career with, it’s required that you enter and complete an ARRT-approved educational program relevant to your chosen discipline.

These programs are widely available, and the key requirement is that the one you choose is ARRT-approved. This will serve as the course that prepares you specifically for a career in your chosen discipline.

The exact duration of your ARRT-approved educational program will vary dramatically from that of other students in different disciplines. A radiography program usually takes nearly two years, but other disciplines take more or less than that.

So, it is a hefty time investment to get your first credential when you factor in the time spent on getting your degree, transitioning to the ARRT program, and finally moving on to the exam.

3: Learn the ARRT Standard of Ethics

The healthcare field is like no other. It’s one of the most fulfilling career paths you can take because you’re directly improving, or even saving, the lives of your patients. However, that also comes with a massive amount of responsibility.

You are a key figure in someone’s life, often during their hardest moments, and a higher degree of ethical character is required in comparison to something like manufacturing or another career path.

As such, the ARRT has a Standards of Ethics guideline that is updated annually. This will be referenced extensively throughout the exam we’re going to talk about. So, you will need to familiarize yourself with it, be capable of demonstrating the behaviors outlined within without fail, and of course, prove that you’re familiar with it.

4: Passing the Exam and Earning Your Credential

Finally, you’ll need to take the exam and earn your credential. There is a fee attached to each attempt, but it’s not unmanageable, and you can consider it a worthwhile investment into a fruitful and fulfilling future.

The exam is 200 questions long, and you’ll have 4 hours to complete it. It’s taken online, but you will go through a tutorial phase before you start the actual exam, and at the end, you’ll have the opportunity to fill out a brief survey.

Once you’ve passed the exam and it has been officially graded, you will be ready to start pursuing your chosen discipline. That is, as long as you meet or exceed the 75 of 99 score requirement for the exam.

Maintaining Your Credentials and Moving Forward

Once you have your certification, you can’t rest on your laurels. You will have to maintain it. Luckily, this isn’t too complicated.

You will need to go through the renewal process for your certification and registration annually. This ensures that you’re up-to-date with the requirements of your field and haven’t forgotten key roles of your job.

Every two years, you will be required to participate in Continuing Education curriculum. This helps you update your knowledge of the career field and stay up-to-date with your annual renewal tests.

You will also need to stay up to date with the ARRT Rules and ARRT Standard of Ethics at all times and comply with both sets of guidelines throughout your day-to-day work.

To move on with your career and earn more credentials, you can pursue the requirements for advanced disciplines such as mammography or bone densitometry.

If either of those are your next step, consider taking these ARRT mammography practice tests or ARRT bone densitometry practice tests to help you prepare for your exams. The process is similar to what we’ve already outlined.