National Hometown Advocacy Week

Advocate the direct relationship between healthcare documentation professionals and patient safety and share our National Hometown Advocacy Week campaign at the local level. Legislative Leaders from states around the nation are coordinating advocacy appointments with federal legislators while the lawmakers are home on congressional recess which just happens to coincide with National MT Week, May 19 to May 26, 2012. Individuals can easily join in the effort. One way is to connect with your local, state or regional chapter of AHDI. They will get you connected with the legislative leader in your state. Another option is to blanket the nation with individual outreach. Download the "Working Together for Patient Safety" posters. Mail or hand-deliver the AHDI National MT Week poster or our National Hometown Advocacy week poster to any number of local offices: hospitals or clinics, private physicians or medical group offices, state or federal legislators or the office of Health and Human Services in your state. Federal House of Representatives local offices can be found in this directory, look for their local offices on their web pages. Federal Senators can be found here. Unsure of your federal legislators? Enter your 9-digit zip code here. Most state legislators and the HHS state offices can be found using state abbreviation.gov (for example: www.ca.gov). Interested? Contact Miranda Chalabi at mchalabi@ahdionline.org or AHDI board member Karen Fox-Acosta at karen.fox@foxtx.net for more information.

Note: High-resolution version of the poster will take time to download due to complexity of artwork and file size.

RMT Study Group Available

Developed by the New Professionals Alliance, the RMT Study Group Course is a 12-week guided course and low-cost option to enhance your preparation for the AHDI credentialing exam. Find out more or sign up for the RMT Study Group today!

Alliance Highlights

Educators Alliance:
Check out the 2011 September Matrix article on Connect the Dots available at www.ahdionline.org under Professional Practices/Publications/Matrix/September issue. Connect the Dots discusses the launch of a medical transcription externship program for the student arena. Additionally, an update on the progress and outcomes from this program can be found in our upcoming May 2012 issue.

The Educators Alliance recently discussed resources for MTs who left the industry and now want to re-enter the MT filed. Visit the AHDI Educators Alliance webpage found here for these great tips and many other resources.

Congratulations, New RMTs and CMTs!

Use AHDI's Credentialed Professionals Directory to see our latest credentialed and recredentialed RMTs and CMTs. This directory is searchable by first or last name, credential type, state, country, and certification completion and expiration dates. The directory can also be used for verifying the credentialed status of a potential RMT or CMT employee or looking for an RMT or CMT colleague.

Vendor Affiliate Highlight

As an AHDI member, most Stedman's products are available to you at a 20% discount. Discount-eligible products are indicated by the original price struck out, followed by the discounted price highlighted in red type at the Stedman's site found through the AHDI portal.

Members, to receive your 20% discount, you must make your purchase through this site (must be logged into the AHDI website).

April Deal of the Month

Spring is in the air! In the spirit of starting afresh, we are offering you not one, but two fantastic deals this month!

Take 20% off the RMT Prep Assessment Course or the CMT Prep Assessment Course!

And don't forget to stop by www.ahdionline.org/succeed where you can continue to freshen up your knowledge with great tips and Recipes for Success!

Integrity Awards Nominations Needed!

Each year we recognize very deserving folks with awards presented at our Annual Convention & Exposition (ACE). Candidates for these awards are nominated by members at large. We know there are many special people in our organization, but so far we have received very few nominations—and the deadline is less than two weeks away! Don't miss this opportunity to nominate an individual or company that has made an impact on the healthcare documentation sector over the previous year. Every one of us knows someone who has made a professional impact over the last year. Be a proactive colleague. Take the time to nominate that person or organization for one of these awards:

• Hall of Fame Award
• Employer of the Year Award
• Membership Impact Award
• Rising Star Award
• Excellence in Credentialing Award
• Innovation through Technology Award
• Educator of the Year Award
• Advocate of the Year Award

Award nomination deadline is April 30, 2012. Visit the Integrity Awards web page for complete details and specific nomination forms.

Renaming the Credential Survey

The AHDI Credentialing Development Team (CDT) is the governing body responsible for policy development and oversight of all AHDI credentialing programs. The CDT operates independently of the National Leadership Board.

In response to the recent rebranding of the medical transcription practitioner to Healthcare Documentation Specialist (HDS), the CDT is exploring new names for the credentials Certified Medical Transcriptionist and Registered Medical Transcriptionist. We are seeking your input on the renaming of the credential.

Jay Vance recently wrote, "One of the driving motivations behind AHDI's move to "rebrand" medical transcriptionists as Healthcare Documentation Specialists is the critical need to remind the broader medical field that our practitioners are indeed an important part of the overall healthcare documentation process." To this end, it is important that our credential names indicate the level of expertise reflected in the attainment of each credential, and in a broader sense, convey the specialized knowledge and expertise required for the accurate capture of each patient's Health Story. In addition, the credential names should encompass traditional and emerging roles, including transcriptionists, quality assurance specialists, speech recognition editors, team leaders, analysts, encoders, abstractors, trainers, and educators.

When evaluating your responses, please consider the following descriptions:

• The RMT exam is designed to assess competency in medical transcription by determining if a candidate has the core knowledge and skills needed to practice medical transcription effectively in today's healthcare environment.
• The CMT exam is designed to assess competency in medical transcription by determining if a candidate has the core knowledge and skills needed to practice medical transcription effectively in a multispecialty acute-care facility, where variable specialties, document types, and difficulty of dictation necessitate an advanced level of clinical knowledge and interpretive ability.

You may also want to refer to AHDI's Model Job Descriptions.

Take the survey now. Survey will be open April 17 through May 1.

Happy National Volunteer Week!

Dear Volunteer Members,
National Volunteer Week is about inspiring, recognizing, and encouraging people to seek ways to engage in their community. It's about meeting our challenges not as isolated individuals, but as members of a community, with all of us working together. We want to take this time to recognize our outstanding volunteers for all you do. Your time, expertise, and commitment to this organization are very much appreciated and vital to the work that AHDI does. Your support enables us to continue to make great strides within our sector—in advocacy, credentialing, and professional development, to name a few. We look forward to working with you on future endeavors. Click here to watch a video message from Linda Brady, CAE, Interim CEO.

Celebrate National Medical Transcriptionist Week with Great New Merchandise from Café Press!

Advocate for and show your support of the healthcare documentation industry with brand new merchandise from Café Press! Our beautiful Working Together for Patient Safety artwork by Regina Holliday is featured on posters, buttons, T-shirts, tote bags, coffee mugs, and more! These are great items to take or be worn to visits with your legislators during National Hometown Advocacy Week May 20 – 26.

Visit the AHDI Marketplace today!

Membership Tip of the Month

Are you looking for a resource tool to empower you to be accurate, fast, and compliant? Benchmark KB is a web-based portal that will do just that. As an AHDI Individual Professional, Postgraduate or Sustaining member, you may purchase Benchmark KB at the discounted rate of $174 (that's $25 off!). Corporate and Educational members should contact InterFix, LLC, for information on discounted rates and bulk pricing. Visit the Benchmark KB web page to learn more about this service.

Vendor Affiliate Highlight

SafetySend is the most affordable solution available for web based HIPAA compliant email, secure web hosting and secure data collection. SafetySend can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection and is also compatible with Microsoft Outlook. With no training required and no hardware or software to buy, you will be using your SafetySend email account in 5 minutes or less! Whether you need to help safeguard protected health information, protect against identity theft or natural disaster, or keep your business in compliance with security standards, SafetySend is the simple solution to address your requirements.

AHDI MEMBERS RECEIVE

discounted price of only $8 per month per user.

Share Your Success this Spring!

Learn how sharing your success can be both empowering and detrimental to completing your credentialing goals—and make sure that you aim for success! Get tips, tricks, free webinars, and learn what relationships you can build to help pave the way to your credential at www.ahdionline.org/succeed.

National Hometown Advocacy Week: May 20–26

Are you interested in advocating for patient safety and the important role of a healthcare documentation specialist? Join us by meeting with your federal legislator during National MT Week (May 20–26) while legislative representatives are at their home office meeting with constituents. For more information on how you can get involved, connect with your local component or your state legislative leader. If you are not sure who your legislative leader is, contact Miranda Chalabi at mchalabi@ahdionline.org.

ACE Sessions Cultivate the Future of Healthcare Documentation

Sparking your growth means learning about what the future holds - for you and for the industry. This year continuing education at ACE will focus on those different aspects of growth and how they will cultivate your future with sessions like "The Next Era of Healthcare Documentation" and "Robotic-Assisted Therapies in the Pediatric Population."

In his presentation, "The Next Era of Healthcare Documentation," Keith Belton, senior director of solutions marketing for Nuance Healthcare, will discuss the current landscape of healthcare documentation workflow as it exists today and provide a vision for what the next few years will look like. Addressing the impact that various documentation technologies are having, and will continue to have, on documentation workflow, Keith will examine guidelines and real-world anecdotes to outline best practices that leaders are leveraging to ensure documentation can evolve beyond a process-driving workflow.

This presentation will explore the evolving role of the healthcare documentation specialist and how the right combination of technology, workflow best practices, and medical editing teams can deliver ongoing benefits for the industry.

While Belton focuses on what the future holds for the role of the healthcare documentation specialist, Ryan Cardinal, clinical program manager for the Riley Hospital for Children Robotic Rehabilitation Center at Indiana University Health, will focus on a new and emerging trend that may make its way into some of the healthcare records you're working on, in his presentation "Robotic-Assisted Therapies in the Pediatric Population."

Capitalizing on components of motor learning and neuro-placticity, Cardinal will explain how robotic-assisted therapies may be used to augment traditional rehabilitation paradigms by providing increased levels of repetition and consistency that are difficult to attain in traditional clinical settings and how this rehabilitation is being explored among those in the pediatric population.

This session will introduce the various pieces of robotic technology being utilized by the Robotic Center, explore the theoretical constructs driving the application of this equipment, share preliminary results from current research endeavors, and outline future lines of inquiry.

Find out more about these innovative sessions at www.ACE365.org and register for ACE 2012 today!

Bonus Member Benefit

Prepare for your exam by joining a study group! This month, AHDI is offering members a 20% discount on the RMT Study Group held in May. Sign up for the May Study Group today!

Deadline for National Leadership Board Nominations has been Extended!

For more information about the qualifications and role of this position, please contact Wendy Carriegan at wcarriegan@ahdionline.org or read more on the AHDI website here. Nominations will close Friday, April 20, 2012. The deadline for receipt of all completed candidate materials in the AHDI office is Monday, April 23, 2012.

April Deal of the Month

With this month focusing on sharing your success, we're doing a little sharing of our own—we're sharing our prep assessment courses with you at a discounted rate!

RMT Prep Assessment Course
Rate: $80 eligible member rate/$100 list price

Consisting of objective tests and transcribing practice, this course assesses your knowledge level in a variety of areas. Paired with a practice exam of 33 voice files and 97 objective questions, the RMT Prep Assessment course is a great way to prepare yourself for your exam!

Register for the RMT Prep Assessment Course today!

CMT Prep Assessment Course
Rate: $100 eligible member rate/$120 list price

Designed to help prepare you for the CMT exam, this course consists of objective tests and transcription practice that will assess your knowledge of level 2 content. The practice exam of 38 voice files and 82 objective questions only adds to the ability of the CMT Prep Assessment course to help you study for your exam! NOTE: This course has been recently updated to align with the CMT Exam Blue Print.

Register for the CMT Prep Assessment Course today!