A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Looks like mandatory CMT credentials soon. - From post below: Wake up. Want you to leave.

Posted: Aug 02, 2010

Just like the post below stated, House of Delgates known as (HOD) from AHDI is wanting everyone to ensure patient safety and the integrity of patient records, all persons involved in creating, editing, organizing, or transmitting protected health information should be formally trained and hold credentials relevant to those duties. To that end, AHDI should move forward with the support of its leadership in actively advocating for mandatory credentialing by whatever means that can be accomplished.

This is an email I received from AHDI.

Yeah, like all the Indians will have to be - credentialed?

[ In Reply To ..]
Happy Money. I hate my job.

they get that free... company perk for them, just like the free - foot rubs

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They get free lunch, free travel to work, free foot rubs, free credentials, but most importantly... FREE TAXES!

Oh yeah, they also do not have to adhere to HIPAA rules and our 98% accuracy rule.

DISCRIMINATION at its finest!!!

I"ll bet they dont even have to test for it - they - probably get their CMT handed to them with -

[ In Reply To ..]
their employee packet as new hires.

"CMT" is the biggest lie, the most totally useless ripoff of American citizens, that this country has seen in decades. And you can bet it's happening in other industries as well.

It's time for America to wake up and realize that it is being RAPED.

Me too - mom2huskies

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N/M

I REFUSE. I will just keep on working & ignoring their - CMT demands until they have to fire me.

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And then of course, I'll collect unemployment and start looking for a REAL job, not a scam MT job, like all of them are turning out to be.

I ALSO REFUSE. I even refused to download that - Fed Up

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software that came our way as part of that class action settlement because it required us to sign up for AHDI membership. I want nothing to do with them.

Everyone needs to be writing to your local papers and - sm

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representatives. Most people don't realize that your medical records and personal information including SS, DOB, etc., are being sent overseas where our laws do not apply. In these letters, we need to lay the blame on the doctors/hospitals for not demanding privacy for their patients for the sake of more profit. People would be horrified to know this. We need to start screaming from the rooftops.

Amen to that. When I'm on UE, it will give me the - time to write letters to EVERYONE.

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Once fired and on UE, there'll be no stopping me. Newspaper op-ed pages, Sentators, Congressmen, TV newsrooms, even local doctors' offices and clinics I look up in the Yellow Pages. And I have a printer, too. Why not print out flyers about this problem and post them on community bulletin boards and college campuses?

While I'm at it, I also intend to start exposing all these "schools" that take people's money and promise them not only a guaranteed job, but $40-60K/year to boot.

It's all a SCAM, and a RIP-OFF, and these crooks need to be OUTED.

Count me in - mom2huskies

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I agree 100% with your post. At this point I would not advise anyone to choose MT. It is just getting too hard to make a living anymore.

AHDI/AAMT has been beating that drum for years - anon

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about mandatory credentialing, and it still hasn't happened. IMHO, if MTs had formed a bona fide labor union, like nurses and other healthcare workers, back when our numbers were much larger, there might have been enough muscle to establish national or statewide standards for MT training and credentialing, or even licensing. I'm no fan of unions, because I used to belong to one in my pre-MT career and it was as bureaucratic and political as the company it claimed to be protecting us from, but it was national, it negotiated contracts, and it established unbreakable ground rules for pay rates, schedule assignments, reductions in workforce, and all those matters in which we MTs have absolutely no voice now.

If AHDI truly represents the MT/ME profession, it seems they would have done something constructive along those lines decades ago. The several meetings I attended way back when it was AAMT consisted mostly of lengthy discussions of bylaws, rules, procedures, protocol, elections, conferences, delegations, and other organizational minutiae. It was a waste of my time and dues and I bailed, and apparently so did many others. Now that organization is a fraction of its original size and, I think, pretty anachronistic.

Bottom line, I wouldn't lose sleep over anything they are proposing. If they want us certified under their auspices, I'll believe it when I see it.

Unions - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
I don't like Unions much either, but my husband is a member and he sure has a better job, better pay, better hours, better benefits, and better working conditions that we do. So I may have to think again.

From the email I have received. - It looks like it is going to happen.

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Why? They are pushing the new HIPAA compliance law for this year and stating ANYONE has to do anything with patient records, coders, MT's, etc., need to adhere to the HIPAA law and NEEDS TO BE CREDENTIALED.

That is how they are getting away with pushing the credentials this time around.

Does "credentialing" in this context mean CMT - another anon

[ In Reply To ..]
or just the "HIPAA 101" that we already do online every year? If AHDI really thinks that "all persons involved in creating, editing, organizing, or transmitting protected health information" should be a CMT, wouldn't that also include the docs and PAs who dictate ("create"), the Medical Records people who organize, and any medical office personnel who might mail or fax ("transmit")?

AHDI would probably love to make all these personnel get their seal of approval(ka-CHING), but telling an MD that he/she now has to get CMT credentials in order to dictate?? C'mon. I sure don't see that happening, either.

Three guesses where I"m gonna tell them to - - s/msg

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"push their credentials?"

Yeah. Push it REAL good.

Except for the money, is the test hard and - is it offered online or what?

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...

CMT - Viva

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The CMT exam is given at Prometric testing centers worldwide and five hours are allotted for it.
I took the RMT exam at Prometric and did it in 3 of the 4 hours. It was a long, hard test: part one had 75 multichoice questions; second part was practicum and had 57 questions.
I imagine the CMT exam would be more of both.

what is that - practicum

[ In Reply To ..]
sorry

exam practicum - Viva

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The practicum is the practical part where you listen to dictation and transcribe just a bit of it, or missing parts. Or they have you listen to something and then you read 5 or 6 versions of it transcribed and figure out which is correct.

Not worth it - sm

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With the direction that this field is going, it will so not be worth it. I don't need credentialling to work at Walmart for just as much pay. If mmany of the MTs feel the same way, I bet you this will be the last nail in the coffin for the US MTs.

If MQ would pay for it and send someone to - my house to administer it,

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I guess I wouldn't mind -- oh and PAY ME FOR THE TIME TO TAKE IT. I just don't want to have to pay hundreds of dollars, drive hundreds of miles, and spend a day of unpaid time for this. So we can all pass it -- so what? Then suddenly, because of this piece of paper, we are fit to be transcriptionists?

I wont even accept it under those circumstances, - because AHDI would still be making $$.

[ In Reply To ..]
And I don't want to see those bottom-feeders make a single more dime, whether it comes out of my pocket, or my employers. NOTHING! I want AHDI gone. Outta here. Exposed. Outed. Flushed down the toilet, into the sewers WHERE THEY BELONG.

No time, no money left. - No way

[ In Reply To ..]
Not only do I not have 2 pennies to rub together to pay for the CMT test, I don't have the time to study for it or take it as MQ's dwindling wages forced me to get a second job.

Also, what grounds would they have to mandate that we take it? Would it make me a better MT even though I have 20+ years' experience in the field? Would it give me a substantial pay increase?

If the "credentials" are going to be mandatory, then - decent pay better be part of the package! nm

[ In Reply To ..]
.

LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT! - To get CMT and be paid CRAP?

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They want how much money for this CMT test? They want us to drive down to the testing site and spend hours taking the test? I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT,

BUT

the pay to be a medical transcriptionist SUCKS! Why the heck would I want to take my time and spend tons of money to take a test when I can barely make minimum wage because I either run out of work in the evenings and weekends and dropped my pay in half over the years. GOLLY GEE! My son makes more money working as a lifeguard.

Even AHDI is asking us to take tests, and take classes yearly once you get your CMT. If AHDI wants us to all to be CMT's THEN SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!! I thought they were supposed to be helping us out and instead, they get the money? There sure are a bunch of meanie, greedy evil business practices out there.

ADHI flexing their proverbial muscles - and MQ benefitting

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Both ADHI and MQ would come out smelling like ROSES and we'd have to pay through our NOSES. I'm sure it wouldn't amount to any significant increase in salary. MQ just wants to put a few more feathers in its business cap to brag about having "credentialed" MTs. ADHI and MQ are counting that no one would confront them and ask them about due compensation for such credentials. Keeeerrrrap.

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