American BLS Services Corp is a Florida-based company that holds an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. But whether their certification will be accepted by your employer depends on several factors, including whether the course includes a hands-on skills assessment and whether your workplace specifically requires certification from the American Heart Association or American Red Cross.
If you’re a healthcare worker, nursing student, or someone whose job requires BLS certification, the real question isn’t just whether a company is “legit” in a legal sense. It’s whether the certificate you receive will actually be recognized where you need it. That distinction matters more than anything else.
What Makes a BLS Certification Accepted
BLS (Basic Life Support) certification isn’t regulated by a single government body. There’s no federal license for CPR training the way there is for, say, practicing medicine. Instead, the system runs on employer policies and industry standards. Most hospitals, clinics, EMS agencies, and nursing programs specify which certifying organizations they accept, and the two names that appear on nearly every approved list are the American Heart Association and the American Red Cross.
Both organizations build their curricula around the same scientific foundation: the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) consensus recommendations, which were most recently updated in 2025. The AHA publishes its own guidelines for CPR and Emergency Cardiovascular Care based on that evidence, and the Red Cross aligns its content with both the ILCOR recommendations and the AHA guidelines. This means the core skills and protocols taught by these two organizations are grounded in the same peer-reviewed science.
Smaller or third-party BLS providers can teach the same material. The problem is that many employers don’t recognize their certificates, regardless of curriculum quality. Before paying for any BLS course, check directly with your employer, school, or licensing board to confirm which providers they accept.
Online-Only vs. Hands-On Certification
This is where many people run into trouble. Some BLS providers offer fully online courses that let you earn a certificate without ever touching a mannequin or demonstrating chest compressions to an instructor. These courses are convenient, but they come with significant limitations.
OSHA recommends that CPR training include hands-on practice with mannequins and partner exercises. The American Red Cross makes the distinction clear on its own website: online-only courses result in a “Certificate of Completion” that may not meet workplace requirements, while blended or in-person courses that include skills testing result in a full “Certification” that satisfies OSHA requirements and professional licensing compliance.
The hands-on skills session typically tests your ability to perform CPR, use an AED, manage choking, control bleeding, and safely remove gloves. These are physical skills that require muscle memory and real-time feedback from an instructor. A fully online course, no matter how well-designed, cannot verify that you can actually perform them correctly.
If you’re getting BLS certified for a healthcare job, you almost certainly need a course that includes in-person skills testing. If you see a provider advertising a complete BLS certification through a purely online format, that’s a red flag for workplace acceptance.
How to Verify a Provider Before You Pay
The safest approach is straightforward: ask your employer or school which BLS providers they accept, then go directly to that provider’s website. For the American Heart Association, courses are listed at heart.org. For the American Red Cross, they’re at redcross.org. Both offer blended learning options where you complete the knowledge portion online and then attend a shorter in-person skills session.
If you’re considering a third-party provider like American BLS Services Corp, look for a few things:
- Skills assessment: Does the course require you to demonstrate physical competencies in person with an instructor, or is it entirely digital?
- Curriculum source: Does the provider state that its content follows the current ILCOR and AHA guidelines?
- Employer acceptance: Have you confirmed, in writing or through your HR department, that this specific provider’s certificate will be accepted?
- Certification period: Standard BLS certifications are valid for two years. Be cautious of providers offering unusual timeframes.
An A+ BBB rating tells you that a company handles customer complaints well and operates transparently. It does not tell you that hospitals or nursing programs will accept its certificates.
Why Employers Are Specific About Providers
Healthcare organizations aren’t being arbitrary when they limit accepted BLS providers. They’re managing liability. If a nurse needs to perform CPR on a patient, the hospital needs confidence that the training behind that nurse’s certification involved supervised practice, standardized testing, and curriculum backed by current resuscitation science. The AHA and Red Cross have decades of institutional credibility, millions of trained individuals across thousands of healthcare organizations and EMS agencies, and transparent processes for updating their guidelines when new evidence emerges.
The 2025 AHA Guidelines, for example, represent a comprehensive revision covering adult, pediatric, and neonatal life support, with strict conflict-of-interest policies governing the evidence review. Smaller providers may teach equivalent content, but they don’t carry the same institutional trust with employers. That gap in trust is what determines whether your certification gets you hired or leaves you scrambling to retake a course.
The Bottom Line on Cost and Convenience
Third-party BLS providers often attract customers by offering lower prices or faster completion times. If you need a BLS certificate for personal knowledge or a non-healthcare job with flexible requirements, a less expensive option might work fine. But if you need certification for a clinical position, nursing school admission, or any role where a specific provider is mandated, saving $20 on a course that won’t be accepted costs you far more in wasted time and money.
Red Cross and AHA blended courses let you do the reading and video portions at your own pace online, then attend a skills session that typically runs a few hours. This format balances convenience with the hands-on verification that employers require. Recertification courses follow the same structure and extend your certification for another two years.