Guide · checked October 22, 2026
This is the remedy page. (If you're still diagnosing — you worked, but the registry shows inactive — start with “I worked but the registry says I didn't.”) In employer-reporting states, your status depends on a filing your facility owed and didn't make. Facilities fix these when pushed, in this order:
Registries accept proof of the work itself. Collect, for every shift inside your window: pay stubs (facility name, your name, dates, hours), W-2s, or payroll printouts. Ohio's rule also names a signed statement from the facility — or from a physician or nurse with personal knowledge of your work. Tennessee accepts a pay stub, a payroll printout, or a notarized facility attestation. Photograph everything; paper has a way of retiring early.
Verbal asks evaporate at shift change. Write to the facility's administrator or HR — not your scheduler — with four things: who you are (full certified name + registry number if you have it), the exact work dates and hours from your evidence, the registry filing the facility owes (name the registry), and a deadline (“please file by [date] and confirm to me in writing”). Keep the sent copy and the date. The $39 kit includes this letter ready to print, with the registry-specific variants — but the four elements above are the whole anatomy if you write your own.
In “either-reporter” states (Ohio is the clearest), you don't have to wait: file your own statement and evidence with the registry directly. In self-reporting states the filing was always yours — California's renewal attestation is signed by the aide, under penalty of perjury. In strict employer-reporting states (Illinois, Connecticut), your evidence file is still what unblocks the registry's own staff when you call — which is the next step.
Registries move on calls in a way they don't move on portals. Illinois HCWR: 844-789-3676. California CDPH: (916) 327-2445. Your state's number is on its state page. Say the sentence that sorts you correctly: “I worked qualifying hours inside my window; my employer didn't report them; I have pay stubs. What do I file, and where?” Get the name of the person you spoke to and the date.
Once restored: keep every pay stub for at least 25 months, look yourself up yearly, and at any new job ask when the facility files registry reports — and note who told you. The trap is only cruel the first time.
Restoring a wrongly-reported record costs $0 and no testing. Run the status checker answering honestly about the hours you worked — if it says you should be active, this page is your route; the record is wrong, not you.
