About
About Vitals & Vials
Vitals & Vials is an independent CCMA study site: free practice questions with explanations, a page for each of the 12 test-plan areas, and exam facts that each carry a source and a date.
§01
What this site is
Independent of the NHA.
The site is built by the team behind a CCMA exam-prep app, the one the Get the app buttons lead to. This is the free part: a practice test, a timed mock exam, a study guide organized around the NHA test plan, and short pages on the exam's facts and the steps to certification.
We are not the National Healthcareer Association and have no connection to it. NHA writes and owns the CCMA exam; we write practice material to its published test plan. Nothing here is an NHA product, and NHA hasn't checked any of it.
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Where the questions come from
Each question is checked against a reference before it goes up.
- The question bank
Questions come from our CCMA app's bank of 1,605 items, filed under the same 12 areas as the test plan and in close to the plan's proportions.
- The reference check
Items were reviewed against a reference sheet built from the NHA test plan and from CDC, OSHA, CLSI and American Heart Association guidance. Where a keyed answer disagreed with the reference, the item was rewritten. One example: a privacy question that keyed the Patients' Bill of Rights where HIPAA is the law that applies.
- Newly written questions
Where a concept page needed questions the bank did not have, new ones were written and then answered blind by a second reviewer who never saw the key. A disagreement meant a rewrite or removal.
- One page, one set
No question appears on two pages, so moving from the practice test to the mock exam to an area page always brings new items.
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How exam facts are handled
If a number can't be sourced and dated, it stays off the site.
| Kind of claim | What we do |
|---|---|
| Fees, question counts, time, scoring | Published only with the NHA source and the date we read it. Fees can change without notice, so the date matters. |
| Pass rates and average scores | Not published. NHA doesn't release them, and figures found elsewhere cannot be checked. |
| “You need X% to pass” | Not published. The CCMA uses a scaled score, and NHA says the scaled score isn't a percentage. |
| Comparisons with other credentials | Built from each certifying body's own pages (AAMA, AMT, NCCT, NHA), with dates. No rankings. |
| Pay and job outlook | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data for medical assistants, with its date. |
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What you won't find here
Rules this site holds itself to.
- Remembered or leaked exam questions. NHA exam items are confidential.
- Any claim that this site or our app guarantees a pass.
- Wording that suggests NHA approves of, sponsors or works with this site.
- Medical advice. The clinical values here are exam study material; patient care follows your training and your provider's orders.