Both are called CME. They are not the same requirement.
Recertification CME
Set by NCCPA, on NCCPA’s cycle, with its own categories and its own logging system. This is what keeps certification alive — and therefore what keeps every license resting on it alive.
State renewal CME
Set by each board you are licensed under, on that board’s cycle, frequently with mandated subject areas: controlled-substance prescribing, human trafficking recognition, implicit bias, state-specific law. Content requirements change more often than hour totals do.
Where they diverge
Hours can count toward both, but not automatically. A state-mandated topic may not fall into a category NCCPA credits. Conversely, general clinical CME that satisfies NCCPA may not touch a state’s mandated subjects at all.
The cycles rarely align either. Certification runs on one period; a state may run annually, biennially, or on your birth month in odd years. A PA licensed in three states is tracking four overlapping windows.
Practical handling
Track them as separate ledgers rather than one pool, and note against each entry which requirement it satisfies. Do the state-mandated topics deliberately and early — they are the ones with no substitute, and they are the ones that cannot be fixed with a burst of general CME in the final month.
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