Credentialing Exams for Blackstone Medical Transcription Graduates
By P. Ireland, CMT, AHDI-F
Medical Transcription Consultant, Instructor
You’ve Completed Your Medical Transcription Training! What’s Next?
Now that you have earned your certificate of completion from the Blackstone Medical Transcription course, you are ready to sit for the RHDS credential, one of the Credentialing exams for the medical transcription industry. This exam is for healthcare documentation specialists such as medical transcriptionists, medical language specialists, speech recognition editors. Sitting for an exam like the RHDS is not necessary to be able to receive an entry level job within the medical transcription career field. However, it is a popular career choice due to the likelihood of increased pay, wider variety of job opportunities, and obtaining designation.
Additional requirements prior to sitting for this exam may consist of proof of recent graduation, fewer than 2 years’ experience in acute care, and/or practitioners who work in a single-specialty environment. The *RHDS is a prerequisite for earning the *CHDS credential (see footnotes below).
Career Opportunities
Working in the medical transcription profession allows you to evolve your career in a variety of healthcare settings, including doctors’ offices, public and private hospitals, teaching hospitals, medical transcription businesses, clinics, laboratories, radiology and pathology departments, insurance companies, medical libraries, government medical facilities, rehabilitation centers, legal offices, research centers, veterinary medical facilities, and associations representing the healthcare industry.
A medical transcription career also offers the opportunity to work with healthcare professionals in multiple specialties. Transcriptionists work with pharmacists, therapists, technicians, nurses, dieticians, social workers, psychologists, and other medical personnel. All of these healthcare providers rely on information that is received, documented, and dispersed by the medical transcriptionist.
Some transcriptionists choose to work from home as employees of transcription businesses or hospitals. Others in the medical transcription career provide services as independent contractors.
Qualified medical transcriptionists who wish to expand their professional responsibilities may become quality assurance specialists, supervisors, managers, department heads, or owners of medical transcription businesses. Experienced medical transcriptionists may become instructors working in schools to educate those working toward a medical transcription career.
Benefits
The RHDS credential will follow your name, see above for an example. These credentials speak to the commitment towards continuing education of the MT/HDS. In other words, it verifies the specialist is knowledgeable of the most recent, updated studies and information in their field. Credentialed professionals may earn more than professionals with no credentials.
The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDS) offers the Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS) exam. The cost of the exam does vary, however student memberships’ fee are waived thanks to the Building Futures Sponsorship program: https://www.ahdionline.org/?page=membershiptypes
Log onto the AHDI website home page, click on “Certification” from the bar across the top of the page. The dropdown box offers detailed explanations on certification, exam preparation, how to sign up, and much more.
*Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist
*Certified Healthcare Documentation Specialist
About Blackstone:
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