The NPLEX (Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examinations) is the examination that graduates of an approved naturopathic medical college must pass to be eligible for licensure in any of the 16 states or 5 provinces that license/register naturopathic physicians. NABNE is responsible for qualifying applicants to take the NPLEX examinations, administering the examinations to examinees, and preparing and sending exam results and transcripts to regulatory authorities.

The existence of a valid national licensing examination is of vital importance.  Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examinations (NPLEX) follows the same standards as the National Board of Medical Examiners (for the USMLE), the National Board of Chiropractic Examiners, the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners, and other healthcare professions. While continually working to improve the examinations, NPLEX is confident that the examinations serve the purpose of identifying those candidates who are ready to practice safely.

NPLEX follows ALL testing standards for exam development and scoring set forth in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (compiled by the American Educational Research Association AERA, the American Psychological Association APA, and the National Council on Measurement in Education NCME). These are the standards endorsed by the Council on Licensure, Enforcement, and Regulation (CLEAR - a North American organization, of which NABNE/NPLEX is a member). To this end, NPLEX has:

• Undertaken psychometric evaluation of all aspects of exam development
• Based the clinical examinations on a blueprint created from the results of a job analysis
• Trained more than 100 naturopathic physicians and biomedical science faculty in item writing techniques
• Used the expertise of a number of N.D.s, in a four-tiered structure, to review items individually and the examinations as a whole in order to ensure relevance and quality
• Trained raters and used standard criterion-referenced methods (Angoff) to set the passing scores on all examinations
• Conducted studies to assess criterion-reference and construct validity
• Updated the original job analysis and revised blueprints in accordance with results