Peer Support Specialist Job Description Template

The exact credential, named the way your certifier names it.

"Peer support specialist certification" is a different document from state to state — Certified Peer Specialist, Certified Peer Recovery Specialist, Certified Recovery Peer Specialist and more — issued by a state agency, an IC&RC member board or a designated nonprofit, or recognised through Medicaid rules where no standalone state credential exists.

Write your certifier's exact title into the posting, say whether you accept applicants who are still in the certification process, and say who pays training and exam fees.

Two traps cost applicants: a training certificate from a recovery coach academy is not a state certification, and a national credential such as NAADAC's NCPRSS does not by itself satisfy a state's Medicaid rule.

Peer specialist vs. recovery coach untangles the titles.

Never advertise a protected title, and never write "licensed."

No state licenses peer support specialists — the states certify them, or in a few states recognise them through Medicaid rules — so "licensed peer support specialist" is an error candidates notice.

Some states now protect the certification title itself: in Washington a person may not use the title certified peer support specialist without the Department of Health credential that took effect July 1, 2025 (RCW 18.420.030), and Vermont's Office of Professional Regulation certification (also effective July 1, 2025) protects its titles while leaving practice without certification lawful (26 V.S.A. § 3192).

Where the title is protected, a "certified" title in your ad describes a credential the hire must already hold.

The lived-experience line, restated from your certifier rather than invented.

Lived experience is the qualification, and each certifier words its bar differently: Washington asks for a self-attested one or more years of recovery, or being the parent or legal guardian of a youth receiving behavioral health services; Minnesota's mental-health peer certification requires a diagnosis and current or former client status; Mississippi asks peers to self-identify as a current or former recipient of services and to show six consecutive months of self-directed recovery within the last twelve; New Mexico's asks for three or more consecutive years.

Quote your certifier.

Adding a requirement it does not set shrinks your applicant pool for no credentialing or billing reason.

The certification clock, if you hire before certification.

Some states let an uncertified person work toward the credential under supervision — Florida's statute, for example, allows an uncertified peer to provide peer services for up to one year while working toward certification, supervised by a qualified professional or by a certified peer specialist with at least two years of full-time peer experience at a licensed behavioral health organization (F.S.

397.417(3)(d)).

If you hire pre-certification, put the deadline and the supervision plan in the posting, not just the offer letter.

Pay, schedule and classification, stated plainly.

Write an hourly range: peer work is commonly part-time — the median working peer in Michigan's 2025 statewide workforce survey reported a 33-hour week — and federal overtime law points the same way, because the FLSA's learned-professional exemption presumes advanced professional study while the IC&RC peer standard's education floor is a high-school diploma or equivalency; treat the role as non-exempt and say overtime is paid.

Name the employment type, and check your state's rule before offering contractor arrangements: Minnesota bars recovery peers from being classified as independent contractors (Minn.

Stat.

245I.04 subd.

18(c), fully in force January 1, 2025) — one reason the template below posts the role as W-2.

For the range itself, budget from the proxy: SOC 21-1093, social and human service assistants, had a national median of $45,930 with the middle half at $38,150–$54,350 (BLS OEWS May 2025, national, cross-industry) — a band around the role, not peer pay; the same Michigan survey found a $20 median hourly wage.

See what to budget for a peer support specialist.

Who supervises, and how often.

Supervision is a condition of Medicaid peer billing, not a management preference: federal guidance (CMS SMDL #07-011, August 15, 2007) requires supervision by a competent mental health professional as your state defines one.

Name the supervisor's credential and the schedule — your state's rule may set it precisely, as Virginia Medicaid's addiction-services (ARTS) rule does for peers in their first year (at least thirty minutes of face-to-face, one-to-one supervision twice a month).

If the role supports Medicare peer navigation, the service is furnished under the general supervision of the billing practitioner.

Verify the certification, and run your own screening.

Look the credential up with the certifier that issued it and record the result before the offer is final.

A certification is not a background check: SAMHSA's model standards put background checks on the hiring organization, not the certifier.

And if the work is federally paid, the OIG exclusion ban applies to you.

See hiring compliance: license verification and exclusion checks and criminal records and peer certification.

Set the billing structure up before day one if Medicaid or Medicare will be billed.

Medicaid peer coverage is a state option with three federal conditions — supervision by a competent mental health professional as your state defines one, an individualized plan of care, and training and certification as your state defines them (CMS SMDL #07-011).

Medicare has paid for peer support navigation under the PIN-PS codes (G0140, G0146) since January 1, 2024, but the billing practitioner bills — the peer does not enrol with or bill Medicare.

The state-by-state detail is in can peer support be billed to Medicaid?

In the first month, calendar the credential's renewal and its continuing-education cycle (where the IC&RC standard applies, 20 hours every two years including six in ethics), confirm who delivers and documents the supervision, and walk through scope boundaries at the first team meeting: peers support recovery — assessment, diagnosis and treatment stay with licensed clinicians.

How to become a certified peer support specialist maps the path your next hire will have walked.