Peer Support Specialist Certification in Indiana: Training, Hours and Medicaid Rules

Indiana has two certification tracks, and DMHA puts them on equal footing.

The state credential is the Certified Peer Support Professional (CPSP), issued and monitored by the FSSA Division of Mental Health and Addiction; ICAADA, a state certification board, issues separate peer certifications, and DMHA's FAQ describes the two as different credentials.

The naming has drifted: the DMHA FAQ still calls ICAADA's pair CAPRC I and CAPRC II, while ICAADA's Summer 2024 update renamed that pair CPRC-A and CPRC — the labels its credentials page now carries — so read a job posting's letters carefully and ask the employer which credential it means.

ICAADA's track also includes the Certified Recovery Advocate for allies, the Certified Family Recovery Coach credentials added in 2025, and the Certified Supervisor of Peer Recovery, a supervisor certification with peer-background and clinical-background versions.

The CPSP's lived-experience rule runs on and/or: your own recovery from a mental health condition, substance use or problem gambling, or lived experience assisting a family member with one.

The family-member route is written into the eligibility list itself, so a loved one's experience is a qualifying basis for the state certification, not a lesser track.

Around it sit three more personal requirements: age 18 or older, a high school diploma or equivalent (DMHA invites applicants without one to contact its team for help finding resources), and living or working in Indiana at least 51% of the time.

The eligibility list read states no minimum recovery period for the CPSP.

ICAADA's requirements differ: its CPRC pair requires personal lived experience of recovery from substance use, mental health or co-occurring disorders, one year minimum of recovery/wellness per its update document, while the allies credentials carry none: the Certified Recovery Advocate is for allies without lived or familial experience, and so is the update PDF's renamed CRC-A.

The CPSP application runs exclusively online through DMHA's Certemy portal.

You upload a driver's license or state ID and a copy of your high school diploma, GED or highest level of education, and sign an attestation to DMHA's Code of Ethical and Professional Conduct inside the portal.

DMHA's Recovery team then contacts you to schedule a phone interview, and once the full application is reviewed you choose from training dates and locations at Ivy Tech campuses around the state.

The cost is the unusual part: DMHA is currently absorbing the fees, so the training and initial exam cost the individual nothing at this time.

No supervised or work hours appear anywhere in the CPSP material the sources read: the eligibility list covers age, lived experience, education and the 51% residency rule, and the FAQ's training and CE answers add nothing about experience hours.

For someone entering the field, the stated path is application, phone interview, 48 hours of training and the proctored exam, with no logged-hours stage in the documents read.

Treat that as a description of what the pages state, not a promise: the certification appears new and its launch date was not located, so confirm current requirements with DMHA before you plan around them.

The examination is proctored and sits at the same specific statewide Ivy Tech locations as the training, so plan travel to a test site rather than assuming a remote option.

Passing produces a certificate you can print yourself: the FAQ says CPSP certificates are available in your Certemy wallet after passing the exam, or at any time on an active CPSP account.

The sources read name no study materials, retake policy or passing score for the CPSP exam, so ask DMHA's Recovery team for those details when your interview is scheduled.

Indiana Medicaid covers peer recovery services — the module equates them with peer support services — under procedure code H0038, billed per 15 minutes, without prior authorization up to 365 hours (1,460 units) per rolling 12-month period; more units require prior authorization.

Practitioners must be certified per DMHA's training and competency standards for a CPSP, and the module describes the services as rehabilitative in nature and requires them to be face-to-face.

For dates of service on or after Jan.

1, 2023, claims bypass the normal IHCP cost-avoidance process, so providers need not bill third-party resources first.

The module's IOT limitations also bar peer recovery services from being billed by the same provider when performed on the same date of service as IOT.

The module names no state plan section or waiver as the authority for the benefit.

ICAADA states separately that its CPRC-A and CPRC are reimbursable through Indiana Medicaid and the Indiana Problem Gambler Awareness Program — that is ICAADA's own statement.

For billing, the supervisor is either a certified peer supervisor or one of a list of practitioners: a physician (such as a psychiatrist), an HSPP, a licensed psychologist, an independent practice school psychologist, an LCSW, LMFT, LMHC or LCAC, a physician assistant, an APRN, or a holder of a master's or doctoral degree in social work from a CSWE-accredited university, accredited mental health counseling, or accredited marital and family therapy.

When you choose an employer, that list is the practical constraint: whoever supervises your billable peer work must already sit on it.

The module's peer recovery section states no supervision frequency or ratio, and it does not name which certification a certified peer supervisor holds — ICAADA's Certified Supervisor of Peer Recovery exists, but the module does not tie the two together.

No reciprocity route into the CPSP was located in the sources read, so if you hold a peer credential from another state, ask DMHA how it counts before you sit the Indiana training.

ICAADA's own materials describe reciprocity for its recovery coach credentials: its update PDF says the CPRC-A is now reciprocal with any IC&RC board offering the IC&RC Peer Recovery-Associate certification, and that CPRC holders can transfer to any IC&RC board offering the IC&RC Peer Recovery Certification.

Treat those as ICAADA's statements — the research pass did not verify ICAADA's IC&RC membership, and ICAADA's reciprocity page was not read.

The CPSP renews every two years with 40 CEUs — 20 per year — and every CPSP must complete an annual DMHA-approved ethics training, which counts toward the CEUs.

All CEUs are uploaded and tracked in your Certemy account, so file documentation as you earn it rather than reconstructing two years of certificates at renewal.

The sources read do not address a renewal fee while DMHA is absorbing certification costs; ask DMHA what applies when your first cycle ends.

The changes here come in two systems.

The IHCP behavioral health module's peer recovery section was updated in v4.0 (published May 15, 2025); v4.4, published July 23, 2026, only adds a title-page note pointing to IHCP Bulletin BT2026123, and the module states its policies and procedures are as of Aug.

1, 2023.

ICAADA renamed in two steps: Summer 2024 turned the CAPRC I and CAPRC II into the CPRC-A and CPRC — the pair the credentials page now lists — and Summer 2025 renamed a separate line, making the old Certified Recovery Coach the allies-only CRC-A and the CRC II the CRC, while debuting the Certified Family Recovery Coach credentials.

DMHA's CPSP state certification appears new and runs through Certemy; its launch date was not located, which is the main reason to re-check the DMHA pages before you apply.