WOCN Society Membership: What You Get for $195/Year
Is WOCN membership worth $195/year? The CE credits, clinical resources, networking, job board, and certification support that come with WOCN Society membership.
Damon Ebanks
Medipyxis
What WOCN Membership Costs
The Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nurses Society offers several membership tiers. Full RN membership runs $195 per year — the standard tier for registered nurses practicing in wound, ostomy, or continence care. Reduced rates are available for students enrolled in WOC nursing education programs, retired nurses, and associate (non-nurse) members. Current rates are listed at wocn.org.
What You Get With Membership
Continuing Education
Members receive discounted or complimentary access to WOCN-sponsored webinars carrying nursing CE contact hours. Over the course of a year, the CE value alone can offset a meaningful portion of the membership fee. Programming covers wound care assessment, ostomy care, continence, documentation standards, and professional development.
JWOCN Journal Access
Membership includes a subscription to the Journal of Wound, Ostomy and Continence Nursing (JWOCN), the peer-reviewed clinical journal published by WOCN. An individual JWOCN subscription outside of membership costs more than $200 per year — so if you would subscribe regardless, the membership fee effectively covers itself through journal access alone.
Clinical Practice Resources
Members access WOCN's clinical practice guidelines, position statements, quick reference guides, and best practice documents — the reference standards many facilities use as the foundation for their wound, ostomy, and continence protocols. For clinicians who build or maintain wound care protocols, having direct access to these source documents is more valuable than working from secondhand summaries.
Conference Discounts
Members save $100 to $200 or more on registration for the WOCN Annual Conference and get priority access to capacity-limited pre-conference workshops, including the certification prep sessions that fill up quickly.
Certification Support
WOCN is the professional home for nurses pursuing or maintaining certifications through the WOCN Certification Board (WOCNCB). While the certification board operates independently from the society, WOCN membership provides resources that support the certification journey.
- Certification preparation resources — study guides, practice questions, and exam preparation materials available through the member portal
- CE credits for certification renewal — CE hours earned through WOCN webinars, courses, and the annual conference count directly toward CWCN, CWON, CWOCN, and CCCN renewal requirements
- Community access to certified peers — discussion forums and networking with nurses who have successfully completed the certifications you are pursuing
For nurses in the certification pipeline, WOCN membership provides a structured support system that independent study does not replicate.
Job Board and Networking
WOCN maintains a job board specifically for WOC nursing positions — employers posting there are seeking nurses with wound, ostomy, or continence expertise, so listings are pre-filtered for relevance. The board is useful whether you are actively job searching or passively monitoring the market for compensation benchmarks and geographic demand.
Membership also connects you to the largest organized community of WOC nurses in the country through online discussion forums, local and regional chapters, mentorship programs, and committee involvement. The networking value is harder to quantify than CE credits or journal subscriptions, but for many members it is the most durable benefit.
Who Gets the Most Value
Nurses pursuing or maintaining WOC certification. If you are working toward CWCN, CWON, or CWOCN — or holding one and needing CE for renewal — WOCN membership is close to essential. Certification prep resources, accredited CE that counts directly toward renewal, conference discounts, and JWOCN access all feed directly into your certification investment.
Wound care nurses in clinical leadership. Clinical coordinators, program directors, and nurse educators benefit from access to WOCN's clinical practice guidelines and professional development resources. If your role involves building wound care protocols, these are primary source material.
WOC nurses who attend the annual conference. The registration discount recovers half or more of the annual fee. Add year-round CE and journal access, and the total value exceeds the cost comfortably.
Who Might Skip It
WOCN membership is not the right investment for every wound care professional.
Providers who are not nurses. WOCN is a nursing organization. Physicians, PAs, and PTs who deliver wound care will find the clinical resources useful, but the professional development, networking, and certification support are nursing-specific. Non-nurse providers may get better value from AAWC or discipline-specific organizations.
Nurses who get CE through employer-provided channels. If your employer fully funds CE through internal programs or a subscription service, the CE component may be redundant. Evaluate whether the journal, clinical resources, and networking justify the fee on their own.
Wound care nurses not pursuing WOC certification. If you do not intend to pursue CWCN, CWON, or CWOCN credentials, the certification support benefits do not apply and the value proposition is weaker — though the journal, guidelines, and networking still carry real value.
Practitioners who attend non-WOCN conferences exclusively. If your conference budget goes to SAWC or other events, you lose the registration discount benefit and the overall return on the membership fee is lower.
The Bottom Line
At $195 per year, WOCN membership is a reasonable investment for wound care nurses pursuing or maintaining WOC certification. The JWOCN subscription alone approaches the membership cost, and the conference discount recovers a significant share on top of that. For nurses outside the WOC certification pathway, the value depends on how much the journal, clinical resources, and professional network are worth independent of certification support.
Current membership details are at wocn.org. For more on the annual conference, see our WOCN 2026 conference preview and the 2026-2027 wound care conference calendar.