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.