Credentialing: - Association for Healthcare Documentation

available for practicing transcriptionists with less than
two years of acute care experience or those working in
limited specialties.
RECREDENTIALING OF RMTs
The RMT exam serves to set a benchmark for entry into
practice. Successfully passing the exam relays to the
industry that a person who has obtained the RMT credential
has the basic skills needed to work in the field.
There is no requirement for the RMT to obtain additional
knowledge and/or skills other than those that would
help to keep them relevant as entry-level practitioners.
Rather than requiring RMTs to obtain continuing education
credits (which would likely be geared to a higher
level of knowledge than needed), the RMT recredentialing
process instead provides hand-picked continuing
education for the purpose of ensuring that the RMT’s
entry-level skills are current. Practitioners who hold the
RMT credential are encouraged to advance to the CMT
level once they have achieved the required experience
in the industry, but they are not required to do so. An
RMT may recredential every three years as an RMT by
completing the RMT Recredentialing Course provided
by AHDI.
RMT RECREDENTIALING COuRSE
The RMT Recredentialing Course provides 11 continuing
education units in three primary content areas.
I. TRANSCRIPTION-RELATED KNOWLEDGE
a. New Prescription Medications
A brief overview of the approval process for new
medications in the United States, and a list of the
most commonly prescribed medications.
b. Common Procedures and Report Types
A recap of terminology pertaining to the most
common report types and procedures.
c. Medical Transcription Style Updates
An overview of evolving trends in medical transcription
style, including a review of dangerous
abbreviations and their use.
d. Common Grammar, Punctuation, and Style Errors
A review of the most common grammar, punctuation,
and style errors in transcription, including
sound-a-likes, abbreviations, and formatting.
e. Editing and Proofreading
A review of the basic concepts of editing and
proofreading.
Continued on next page
voLuME 5 • IssuE 6 novEMBER 2009
ML
IN SEARCh OF ThE ELuSIvE MEDICOLEGAL CREDIT
More than any other category, CMTs report struggling to
find enough medicolegal credits to recertify. Since 2006,
the minimum requirement has increased from four to
six CECs, representing the increasingly important role
medicolegal issues play in healthcare documentation.
Here is a list of available credits in the ML category that
you may not have considered.
• Stedman’s Guide to the HIPAA Privacy Rule (3 CECs).
Write a 200-word summary of what you learned by
reading this book to earn the credits.
• Write your own creditworthy article on a medicolegal
topic. If it is published, you receive 2 ML CECs. If you
also write a quiz to accompany the article, you receive
an additional 1 ML CEC.
• Give a creditworthy presentation on a medicolegal
topic. Writing and delivering the presentation to an
audience of your peers will earn you 2 ML CECs.
• AHDI has partnered with AHIMA to offer online continuing
education courses. The Building the Foundation
for the Privacy Initiative course is worth 4 ML CECs.
You can read more about these course offerings on the
AHDI website by going to Education/Training and then
Continuing Education.
• At the time of this printing, there are 8 ML CECs available
as quizzes on the AHDI website that are tied to
articles in AHDI publications. You will find the list at
the AHDI website under Education/Training > Continuing
Education > Continuing Education Through AHDI
Publications.
21