RN-BC? PMHN-BC? or PMH-BC? Announcing the latest credential change

Apparently, for reasons known only to those in the inner workings of ANCC, for those of us who passed ANCC's Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Board Certification Exam, our credentials changed in the last 6 months.

It seems that somewhere around March 2025 ( or perhaps a bit earlier, it's unclear) the board certification credential changed from PMHN-BC to PMH-BC.

Did you know this? I certainly didn't. And my fairly extensive search of Google offers exactly zero hits on when or why this change was made.

This is the third iteration of this credential we've gone through. We started out with the rather unimaginative RN-BC. Several years later, we morphed into the far more self-explanatory credential of PMHN-BC.

So why are we dropping the "N"...as is Nurse? Is it because people are getting the PMHNP confused with PMHN? Or is this just the latest-greatest change to make us feel like we're growing as a profession?

As far as I know, no official notification has been sent out to those of us who took and passed the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Board Certification Exam. I've been displaying my credentials as Alison Miller, MSN, PMHN-BC, but apparently, that has been incorrect. (Who knew?)

So folks, if you have already taken and passed the exam, you should start using this new credential immediately. Remember: the highest level of educational degree goes first (e.g., MSN) and your certification goes second (e.g., PMH-BC.)

If anyone has more information on the hows and whys of this inexplicable change, do drop me a note and let me know. I'd love to hear more about how this came to be.

Alison@PMHRN.com