Applied Clinical Nutrition (ACN) Certification

Applicants for the ACN that are chiropractors or other licensed health care practitioners or Standard Process® account holders will automatically be approved for participation. Unlicensed practitioners or dedicated clinical nutrition staff members sponsored by their licensed practitioner will need to complete the online application for review and be interviewed prior to approval into the program. Other less qualified applicants may want to consider the Nutritional Clinical Assistant (NCA) certification.

The ACN program tuition includes online and print Directed Study materials in the welcome box, 44 hours of online continuing education from 6 different presenters, handouts and online quizzes, a study guide and curriculum planning eBook, three 45-minute coaching sessions, monthly webinars, a variety of free eLearning courses to fulfill elective hours, online ACN Community Board, access to our practitioner library of tools and resources and a detailed 80 question final exam. Upon completion, we will finalize your transcript, complete the necessary submission paperwork and fees (already included in the tuition) and publish your final exam score to your transcript. An approved certificate will be sent to you directly from Texas Chiropractic College (TCC). Once received, you may use the ACN designation after your name, according to local regulations.

Regional CEU seminars, non-WFP online CEU courses, other professional development courses on our site, and elective programming you choose from another provider are not included. The fees to attend CEU seminars need to be paid to the host (usually the Standard Process area rep or other CEU seminar host) and they will submit your request to the sponsoring Chiropractic College. Typically, you will receive an official voucher or certificate of completion based on verified sign in and sign out and paid fees. 

Online CEU courses also track your activity, often include a quiz and provide a completion record sponsored by an accredited chiropractic college. Online CEU courses sponsored by other entities (non-chiropractic) could be used for Elective Study, but not to fulfill the CEU credit hour requirements. National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) PDA courses will be excepted by TCC as CEU approved courses.

You may also incur additional fees for Elective Independent Study from books you want to read and add to your library, other nutritional certification programs, online professional development courses, college courses, etc. Our goal is to be sure that each enrollee has access to a minimum of 20 complimentary Elective Independent Study hours on the Whole Food Education eLearning platform so additional fees for this requirement are a choice and not a necessity.

The ACN certification program is an open and continuous enrollment with a mix of directed and elective study, as well as CEU online courses that are included in the tuition. Participants may also take local CEU seminars, approved online CEU webinars or CEU courses with other nutritional groups. You can begin any time you wish and pace yourself to complete the program on your timeline.

Some seminars provide pricing for CEU and non-CEU attendees, but everyone gets the same materials and benefit, so why pay the extra fee? In order for our certifications to be sponsored by an accredited, higher education entity and for you to receive a designation to use with your name (ACN), we’ve aligned ourselves with Texas Chiropractic College and they use strict guidelines to approve qualified speakers, review course content for legitimate learning, verify attendance and provide an official transcript of attendance. They have also agreed to honor CEU credits that our ACN enrollees take (nationwide), so long as those seminars and online courses are also sponsored by an accredited chiropractic college. CEU courses that have been vetted and verified make up 60% of the ACN program, and therefore, can be recognized and sponsored by an institution of higher learning.

Approved enrollees will sign into our website and access their personal library. From there, open the ACN Certification course, scroll down to the Continuing Education or Elective Independent Study sections and click CEU or Elective Credit Upload. Click Start and follow the instructions to upload proof of attendance materials or CEU transcripts. We add these documents to your official transcript. When you have completed your requirements, we will file your completed transcript with Texas Chiropractic College.

Our staff and guest speakers are free to discuss their favorite products and recommendations, so long as they are whole food or whole-food based nutritional products, high quality whole plant herbs, medicinal mushrooms, homeopathy, or flower essences. Currently, our in-house educators include product information for Doctors' Research, Gaia Pro Herbs, MediHerb, and Standard Process. Guest speakers may have additional recommendations. 

A majority of the print or audio materials suggested as electives for the ACN certification are published by Selene River Press, Inc. Their principals and editors have very strict criteria regarding what is distributed through their publishing company and it MUST meet whole food and traditional nutrition philosophy. All enrollees get a 10% discount on Selene River Press purchases through our private landing page on that website - so don’t order anything without the link. Since this is a public page, we will send all enrollees this link once they are accepted into the program. If you want to check out Selene River Press before you decide - visit them at https://www.seleneriverpress.com. For other recommendations, please email or schedule an ACN coaching call. 

We anticipate that most ACN enrollees will take between 8 months - 2 years to complete the program, totally based on how much time and effort they are able to expend (fastest time yet was 4 months). The biggest holdup to quick completion is attending enough CEU seminars. That’s why we include online CEU courses in nutrition and herbal medicine and allow other online programs as long as they are sponsored by an accredited chiropractic college.

Our timeframe is a guideline, not a deadline. We will not be charging anyone extra fees if they do not finish within 2 years, but we may be calling and emailing to see how we can help them complete their program or move them to an inactive status, requiring re-initiation. Our staff have personally enrolled in certifications, then life happened, and we missed the deadline and had to pay ½ of the original tuition to continue. We’re not going to do that - but we will try to keep everyone engaged and motivated.

Of course. Many chiropractors and other licensed healthcare practitioners attend CEU seminars on a regular basis for license renewal. If you have already paid for CEU/PDA nutrition seminars that are sponsored by an accredited chiropractic college, NCCAOM or acupuncture board, and you have the official transcript or voucher approving the credit, then yes, we can retroactively transfer previous CEU credits into your ACN certification. Here is the fine print - in order to remain relevant and fair to the process, transfer CEU credits cannot be more than 2 years old.

There are many sites that offer CEU programming, but first and foremost, all courses considered for credits within our certification programs must be focused in nutrition and sponsored by an accredited chiropractic college. TCC uses CE Cruncher as an authorized supplier of chiropractic continuing education. These courses are post-graduate level and in a higher price category than our offerings.

Standard Process’s education site, Wholistic Matters offers free 1 unit CEU courses through New York Chiropractic College. These credits will be accepted with proper documentation.

Lastly, if health care practitioners have taken a nutrition course approved for PDAs through NCCAOM or another acupuncture governing body, TCC will accept those as transfer CEUs, so long as you provide clear proof of attendance and the number of PDA credits received. All CEU and elective credit submissions will need to be made on the eLearning platform after you log into your account.

There are some incredible programs out there - learning that would fit very nicely in our Elective Study portion of the ACN program (20 hours). We encourage nutrition-based organizations and health and nutrition speakers to connect with us regarding their offerings so we can review them for content and pre-approve Elective Study credits. We also encourage our enrollees to submit requests for programs they would like considered for Elective Study.

We may provide a conditional approval for some electives while we ensure learning and review the material. We may also insist on a detailed submission including key learning and application of concepts. Although we are always reviewing additional programs, the following collaborators have pre-approved credits:

• Weston A Price: Wise Traditions Annual Conference (electives only, hours vary depending on program selection)
• IFNH: Certified Clinician in Whole Food Nutrition (CCWFN), 100-hr Certification (23 credits can be applied to CEUs with documentation, 20 hrs toward electives)
• Society of Wellness Nutritional Systems: Functional Herbal Therapy Course with Lee Carroll (24 hours can be applied to CEUs with documentation and 20 hours toward electives)
• Society of Wellness Nutritional Systems: Functional Nutrition Therapy Course with Jenn Franco (18 hours can be applied to CEUs with documentation and 20 hours toward electives)
• Gaeta Communications: Autoimmune Mastery Program, Endocrine Mastery Program, Cardiovascular Mastery and Cancer Support and Prevention (a portion can be applied to CEUs with documentation and remaining hours up to 20 hours toward electives).
• Wholistic Matters: Professional Development CEU Courses (may apply 1 CEU or Elective hour for each completed course, submit completion document)

The topics of the ACN coaching sessions are totally driven by the enrolled student and the student is 100% responsible for scheduling these sessions by calling our office or booking an appointment on our website. If someone is struggling with the concept of being coached or asking for professional help, this structured plan serves as a guide:

Session One:

Introduction and planning meeting, customizing your ACN experience, staying on track, understanding your resources and networks. Typically occurs within the first 3-6 weeks of receiving your welcome instructions and reviewing the content.

Session Two:

Questions on nutritional concepts, challenging theories or changes in paradigm, sharing patient cases and receiving protocol assistance, seeking additional learning tracts, receiving feedback about certification progress, business and marketing strategies, etc. Typically occurs between 4-8 months, but it can be anytime. 

Session Three:

Continued questions on patient cases and receiving protocol assistance, seeking additional learning tracts, receiving feedback about certification progress, business and marketing strategies, discussion about final exam, etc. Typically occurs between 8-15 months, but some enrollees will be near completion during this timeframe.

Additional coaching sessions for ACN enrollees may be purchased as single sessions from our Coaching page once these complimentary sessions have been used.

The final exam is a culmination of the required materials and quizzes, foundational nutrition concepts, critical learning covered by Standard Process® speakers, and current nutritional topics relevant to a whole food therapeutic practice. We will provide a comprehensive study guide that will walk you through the important learning. You may take notes in the guide and use it as an “open book” while taking your final examination.

The final exam is 80 questions worth a total of 100 points. The exam requires a score of 80% or better and may be taken repeatedly until a passing score is achieved. 

The final examination is an 80 question (100 point), online test that provides immediate scoring, wrong answer tips and additional topic reminders for continued learning after the exam. There will be 60 nutrition, 10 herbal and 10 business ethics questions. Question types are multiple choice, true or false, matching, or fill in the blank. Each enrollee must pass the exam with an 80% score or higher and it can be taken more than once in order to achieve this passing score. You may keep your resources and study guide open during this test, but you may not use the internet to search topics and answers.

We provide each potential enrollee with ample time to ask questions during our complimentary discovery session and email exchanges. We also do not pressure anyone into purchasing any certification programs. Once a practitioner or staff member submits their application, is notified of approval and payment is processed, no refunds will be offered or negotiated.