Why Texas Radiology CEU Matters for Your License Renewal
Texas radiology CEU is the continuing education you need to keep your radiologic technologist license active in Texas. Every 24 months, you must complete specific hours of approved courses to renew with the Texas Medical Board.
Quick Requirements by License Type:
| License Type | Total CE Hours | Formal Category A Hours | Direct Radiation Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| MRT (Medical Radiologic Technologist) | 24 hours | At least 12 hours | At least 12 hours |
| LMRT (Limited Medical Radiologic Technologist) | 18 hours | At least 9 hours | At least 9 hours |
| NCT (Non-Certified Technician) | 12 hours | At least 6 hours | At least 6 hours |
Plus: All license types must complete a mandatory human trafficking prevention course.
If you’re juggling shifts, patient care, and family responsibilities, finding time for continuing education probably feels like one more thing on an already packed to-do list. But here’s the good news: Texas has eliminated the requirement for in-person or live webinar courses. You can now complete your CEUs entirely online, on your own schedule.
The Texas Medical Board sets clear rules about what counts toward your renewal. At least 50% of your CE hours must focus on ionizing radiation for diagnostic imaging or treatment. That means courses on radiation safety, anatomical positioning, CT techniques, and mammography applications. The other half can cover broader topics like patient care, ethics, or computer applications in radiology.
Understanding these requirements upfront saves you from last-minute scrambling when your renewal date approaches. Let’s break down exactly what you need to know.
Understanding Your Texas Radiology CEU Requirements by License Type
Think of your Texas radiology CEU requirements like a prescription—the right dose depends on your specific license type. The Texas Medical Board (TMB) sets different continuing education requirements for Medical Radiologic Technologists (MRTs), Limited Medical Radiologic Technologists (LMRTs), and Non-Certified Technicians (NCTs).
Your license renewal runs on a biennial cycle, which is just a fancy way of saying every 24 months. During this two-year period, you’ll need to complete a specific number of CE hours based on your license type. The TMB’s Board Rule 186.19 spells out these requirements in detail, covering not just how many hours you need, but also what types of courses count.
The good news? The TMB has made life easier by eliminating the requirement for in-person or live webinar courses. You can now complete all your continuing education online, on your own schedule—whether that’s during your lunch break or at 11 PM in your pajamas.
Here’s how the requirements break down across license types:
| License Type | Total CE Hours | Formal Category A/A-plus Hours | Direct Ionizing Radiation Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| MRT (Medical Radiologic Technologist) | 24 hours | At least 12 hours | At least 12 hours |
| LMRT (Limited Medical Radiologic Technologist) | 18 hours | At least 9 hours | At least 9 hours |
| NCT (Non-Certified Technician) | 12 hours | At least 6 hours | At least 6 hours |
Notice the pattern? No matter which license you hold, at least 50% of your total CE hours must focus on ionizing radiation. This ensures you’re staying sharp on the core skills that matter most in your daily work.
Medical Radiologic Technologist (MRT) Requirements
As a Medical Radiologic Technologist, you’re looking at 24 CE hours every two years. This is the most common license type in Texas, and it comes with the most comprehensive continuing education requirements.
Of those 24 hours, at least 12 must be formal Category A or A-plus credits. These formal courses have been evaluated by an ARRT-recognized RCEEM (Recognized Continuing Education Evaluation Mechanism) or RCEEM-plus. Organizations like the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) provide this evaluation, which guarantees the courses meet professional standards.
The other critical piece is that at least 12 hours must directly relate to ionizing radiation for diagnostic imaging or medical treatment. This includes courses on radiation safety, CT techniques, fluoroscopy, mammography applications, and anatomical positioning. These are the bread-and-butter topics that keep you competent in your core responsibilities.
The remaining 12 hours can cover broader professional topics like patient care, ethics, medical terminology, or computer applications in radiology. This balanced approach keeps you well-rounded while ensuring you maintain expertise in radiation-related skills.
Looking for courses that check all these boxes? Our Radiology CE Courses are designed specifically to meet Texas requirements while helping you grow professionally.
Limited Medical Radiologic Technologist (LMRT) Requirements
If you hold an LMRT license, your requirements reflect your more focused scope of practice. You’ll need 18 total CE hours per biennium, with at least 9 hours coming from formal Category A or A-plus courses.
Just like MRTs, you need at least 50% of your hours—that’s a minimum of 9 hours—focused on ionizing radiation for diagnostic imaging or medical treatment. These radiation-focused hours should also be formal credits, ensuring you’re getting high-quality instruction in the specialized areas where you practice.
The beauty of the current rules is their flexibility. While formal courses are required, you’re no longer tied to attending in-person sessions or logging into live webinars at specific times. You can complete your entire CE requirement through self-paced online courses that fit around your work schedule and personal life.
This makes it much easier to stay current without sacrificing your weekends or taking time off work. You can spread your learning throughout the 24-month period instead of cramming everything in at the last minute.
Non-Certified Technician (NCT) Requirements
Non-Certified Technicians have the most streamlined requirements, but they’re no less important. You’ll need 12 total CE hours every two years to maintain your license.
Following the same 50% rule, at least 6 hours must focus on ionizing radiation for diagnostic imaging or medical treatment. These 6 hours need to be formal Category A or A-plus courses, ensuring you’re getting properly evaluated content even with the reduced hour requirement.
Even though NCTs typically work within a more limited scope, the TMB still requires regular refreshers on radiation safety and application. This protects both you and your patients by making sure everyone working with ionizing radiation maintains current knowledge.
The biennial renewal cycle applies to you too, so pacing yourself throughout the 24-month period is smart. With online learning, you can knock out a course here and there as your schedule allows. No need to block out entire days or travel anywhere—just log in, learn, and download your certificate when you’re done.
The Nitty-Gritty: Course Content and Special Mandates
Now that we’ve covered the basics of how many hours you need, let’s talk about what actually counts toward your Texas radiology CEU requirements. The Texas Medical Board doesn’t just care about quantity—they’re equally focused on making sure your continuing education genuinely improves your skills and keeps patients safe.
Think of it this way: you wouldn’t accept a poorly positioned X-ray, and the TMB won’t accept just any course for your license renewal. There are specific rules about course content, mandatory state requirements, and limits on certain types of learning. Let’s bring all of this into sharp focus.
The Mandatory Human Trafficking Prevention Course
Here’s something every Texas radiologic technologist needs to know, regardless of whether you’re an MRT, LMRT, or NCT: you must complete a human trafficking prevention course to renew your license. This requirement came from House Bill 2059, passed by the 86th Legislature, and it applies to all healthcare professionals who provide direct patient care.
This isn’t just another box to check. As healthcare providers, we’re often the first people who might notice signs of trafficking in vulnerable patients. The training equips us to recognize these signs and know how to respond appropriately.
The good news is that this course counts toward your total CE hours, even if it comes from a provider that isn’t ARRT-recognized. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) approves these courses, and many are available for free. For renewals on or after September 1, 2020, this became a non-negotiable requirement.
We recommend tackling this requirement early in your renewal cycle. You can find an approved Human Trafficking Prevention Training course through the HHSC website. It’s usually quick to complete and provides genuinely valuable information for your practice.
Directly vs. Indirectly Related Topics for your Texas radiology CEU
Here’s where the TMB gets specific about content. 50% Rule we mentioned earlier? At least half of your required CE hours must be directly related to ionizing radiation for diagnostic imaging or medical treatment. This ensures you’re continuously sharpening the core skills that define our profession.
Directly related topics are the courses that make you better at what you do every day in the imaging suite. These include radiation safety and protection, radiation biology and physics, anatomical positioning and radiographic exposure technique, and emerging imaging modalities like advanced CT or interventional radiology techniques. Patient care that’s specifically associated with radiologic procedures counts here, as does anything involving radio-pharmaceuticals, contrast media, computer applications in radiology systems, mammography applications, nuclear medicine applications, and radiation therapy applications.
These are the courses that keep you current with technology and techniques, making you a more skilled and confident technologist.
Indirectly related topics still support your professional growth, but they’re not specifically about ionizing radiation. No more than 50% of your required hours can come from these areas. These might include general patient care skills, basic computer literacy, communication and ethics courses, management and administration training, or broader medical sciences topics. While these courses are valuable for your overall development as a healthcare professional, the TMB wants to ensure you’re spending most of your CE time on your core competencies.
The balance makes sense when you think about it. You need to be an expert in radiation and imaging, but you also need to communicate well with patients, work effectively with your team, and understand the ethical dimensions of your work. For the official TMB definition and complete list of what counts as directly versus indirectly related content, check the TMB definition of CE content.
Formal vs. Self-Study: Understanding the Limits
The TMB also sets rules about how you earn your Texas radiology CEU hours. There’s an important distinction between formal credits and self-study, and understanding this difference will save you headaches at renewal time.
At least 12 hours for MRTs, 9 hours for LMRTs, and 6 hours for NCTs must come from formal courses designated as Category A or Category A-plus credits. These courses have been evaluated by an ARRT-recognized RCEEM (Recognized Continuing Education Evaluation Mechanism) or RCEEM-plus. Organizations like the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) provide this evaluation, ensuring the courses meet rigorous quality standards.
Self-study courses offer wonderful flexibility for busy professionals, but there’s a cap. No more than 12 hours in your two-year renewal period can come from self-study or courses not approved for formal CE. So if you’re an MRT needing 24 total hours, you could do 12 hours of self-study, but the other 12 must be formal Category A credits. For LMRTs needing 18 hours, that’s 9 formal and up to 9 self-study. For NCTs needing 12 hours, that’s 6 formal and up to 6 self-study.
Here’s the great news: the TMB eliminated the requirement for in-person or live webinar courses. Your formal Category A credits can now be earned entirely online through approved providers, as long as they meet the quality standards. You get structured, evaluated education without sacrificing the convenience of learning on your own schedule.
If you’re ready to knock out those formal credit requirements with courses that fit your busy life, explore X-Ray Radiology Continuing Education options designed specifically for Texas radiologic technologists. We make staying compliant simple, so you can focus on what you do best—taking care of patients.
How to Fulfill Your Texas and National CEU Requirements Simultaneously
If you’re like most radiologic technologists in Texas, you probably hold both your state license and a national certification from the ARRT®. Here’s something that’ll make your life easier: you don’t have to complete separate continuing education for each one. With smart planning, the same courses can satisfy both your Texas radiology CEU requirements and your national certification needs. It’s the ultimate professional efficiency move.
Finding Approved Texas Radiology CEU Courses
The secret to dual compliance is choosing courses from recognized continuing education providers whose offerings meet both Texas Medical Board standards and ARRT® requirements. When a course earns Category A or A-plus credits from an ARRT®-recognized evaluation mechanism like the ASRT, it typically satisfies Texas’s formal credit requirements too.
Look for courses that clearly state their approval status. The provider should specify that their courses are approved as Category A or A-plus by ARRT®-recognized third-party accreditation mechanisms. This designation means the courses have undergone rigorous review and meet established quality standards. As long as the content aligns with Texas’s requirements, particularly that 50% ionizing radiation focus we discussed earlier, you’re covering both bases with one course.
The Texas Medical Board has partnered with CE Broker to help licensees find, track, and report continuing education more easily. This platform can be a helpful starting point, though you’ll always want to verify courses meet all TMB requirements, especially that critical ionizing radiation content rule.
Online providers offer the flexibility most of us desperately need. You can complete courses between shifts, during quiet evenings at home, or even during your lunch break. No travel required, no rigid schedules to juggle. We’ve designed our courses at Scrubs CE with exactly this kind of flexibility in mind. Our Texas radiology CEU courses are self-paced, accessible anytime, and you receive instant certificates upon completion. To make your planning even simpler, check out our Radiology CE Course Combos where we’ve bundled complementary courses that work perfectly together for both state and national requirements.
Tracking and Documentation: Staying Audit-Ready
Here’s something important: while the TMB doesn’t require you to submit CE certificates with your renewal application, they absolutely do conduct random audits. And if your name comes up, you’ll need to produce documentation quickly. Think of good record-keeping as your insurance policy against renewal headaches.
The Texas Medical Board requires you to keep proof of completion for at least two renewal periods, which typically means four years. Your certificates of completion are your primary evidence. Make sure each one clearly shows the course title, provider name, completion date, and the number of CE hours with their category designation.
Beyond certificates, consider keeping course descriptions or outlines. If an auditor questions whether a course meets the “directly related” criteria for ionizing radiation content, having the course outline readily available can resolve the issue immediately. A simple personal log tracking all your completed CEUs with dates, hours, and topics makes everything easier to reference.
The TMB Online Renewal Portal is where you’ll manage your license renewal. You won’t upload documentation there unless specifically requested during an audit, but it’s good to familiarize yourself with the portal before your renewal deadline approaches.
Smart documentation practices start with redundancy. Keep digital copies of your certificates in multiple places: your computer, cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox, and even email copies to yourself. Print physical backups and store them in a dedicated folder. Technology fails, files get corrupted, and computers crash at the worst possible moments. Multiple backup copies mean you’re covered no matter what happens.
Make sure everything you save is clearly dated. If you’re planning to carry over excess credits to your next renewal period (yes, you can do that, and we’ll cover it in the FAQ section), document those carefully with notes about which renewal period they’re intended for. The two-year limit on carry-over credits means you need to track when you earned each credit.
Staying organized might feel like extra work now, but it takes maybe an hour to set up a good system. Compare that to the stress of scrambling during an audit or, worse, facing delays in your license renewal because you can’t locate your documentation. The peace of mind alone is worth it, and you’ll breeze through any audit that comes your way.
Frequently Asked Questions about Texas Radiology CEUs
We’ve covered a lot of ground, but you might still have some specific questions buzzing in your head. These are the questions we hear most often from radiologic technologists across Texas, and we want to make sure you have clear, straightforward answers about your Texas radiology CEU requirements.
Can I carry over extra CE hours to the next renewal period?
Here’s some good news for the overachievers among us: yes, you absolutely can carry forward excess CE credits to your next biennial renewal period! If you’ve completed more than your required hours, those extra credits don’t just vanish into thin air.
The Texas Medical Board allows you to roll forward a maximum of 48 total excess credit hours, but these can only be applied to your immediate subsequent renewal period. In other words, you can’t stockpile credits indefinitely – they’re only good for the next two-year cycle.
There’s one important exception to keep in mind: the mandatory human trafficking prevention course cannot be carried forward as an excess credit. You’ll need to complete this required course fresh for each renewal period, even if you’ve done it before. Think of it as a regular refresher on this critical public health issue.
So if you attended an amazing conference that gave you extra credits, or if you got a little too enthusiastic browsing through CE courses one weekend, those hours will serve you well next time around. Just make sure you document them properly and use them within that two-year window.
Do I need to send my CE certificates when I renew my license?
This question comes up constantly, and the answer is refreshingly simple: no, you do not need to send copies of your CE certificates with your registration renewal.
When you log into the TMB Online Renewal Portal to renew your license, you’ll attest that you’ve completed the required CE hours. The Board trusts you initially, and that’s the end of it for most people.
But – and this is a big but – the TMB conducts random audits after each registration period. If your license number comes up in the audit lottery, or if Board staff send you a written request for documentation, you’ll need to provide your certificates of completion promptly. This is exactly why we emphasize keeping meticulous records. Those certificates should be filed away safely, easily accessible if you need them.
Think of it like keeping your old tax returns. You probably won’t need them, but if the IRS comes knocking, you’ll be really glad you saved them. Same principle applies here with your CE documentation.
Are there any exemptions from CE requirements?
Life doesn’t always go according to plan, and the Texas Medical Board recognizes that sometimes circumstances genuinely prevent you from completing your continuing education. Exemptions do exist, but they’re granted on a case-by-case basis and require you to submit a written request to TMB explaining your situation.
The most common reasons for exemption include experiencing a catastrophic illness or injury that prevented you from fulfilling your CE obligations, serving in extended military service abroad, or maintaining extended residency abroad where you couldn’t access appropriate courses. The Board also considers other extenuating circumstances under a “good cause shown” category, which gives them flexibility to evaluate unique situations.
Exemptions aren’t automatic or permanent. You’ll need to provide supporting documentation along with your written request, and approvals are typically limited to one registration period. If your circumstances continue into the next renewal cycle, you’ll need to apply again.
Most of us, thankfully, won’t need to pursue an exemption. But it’s reassuring to know that the Board has provisions for those truly difficult situations when completing your Texas radiology CEU simply isn’t possible through no fault of your own.
Conclusion: Power Up Your Career with Compliant CE
You’ve made it through the maze of Texas radiology CEU requirements, and honestly, that’s half the battle! Now you understand exactly what you need: the specific hours for your license type, the critical 50% rule about ionizing radiation content, the mandatory human trafficking prevention course, and the balance between formal and self-study credits. You know how to keep records that’ll save you during an audit, and you’ve got answers to those nagging questions about carry-over credits and exemptions.
Here’s the beautiful truth: staying compliant doesn’t have to feel like a burden. The Texas Medical Board’s decision to eliminate in-person CE requirements means you can complete everything online, on your schedule. Whether you’re winding down after a long shift, enjoying a quiet Sunday morning, or squeezing in learning during your lunch break, you have the flexibility to make continuing education work for your life.
This isn’t just about maintaining your license, though that’s certainly important. Every course you complete sharpens your skills, updates your knowledge base, and ultimately makes you a better healthcare provider for your patients. When you understand the latest radiation safety protocols or refine your positioning techniques, you’re investing in excellence. That’s something to feel good about.
At Scrubs CE, we built our platform with busy healthcare professionals like you in mind. Our self-paced courses mean you’re never rushing to catch a live webinar or scrambling to find childcare for an in-person class. Complete a module, get your instant certificate, and move on with your day. Simple as that. We’ve taken the stress out of the equation so you can focus on what matters: learning and growing in your profession.
Whether you’re working in general radiography, specializing in mammography, or expanding your skills into new modalities, we’ve got courses designed to meet your needs and keep you compliant. Ready to knock out those CEU requirements? Fulfill your requirements with our Mammography CE Courses or explore our complete catalog of radiology offerings. We’re here to support your journey every step of the way. Your career deserves it, and so do you!
Recent Comments