Medical transcription certification – What is it all about?

What is medical transcription certification?
Medical transcription is a subsidiary of healthcare profession. It deals with listening to physician dictation and converting the audio into electronic text document. Anyone who gets trained in medical transcription would not be considered as a professional medical transcriptionist.

Medical transcription service providers and MT companies demand certain skills from a professional medical transcriber. As a part of their hiring policy a qualified MT should possess a diploma in medical transcription from a reputed institute or Medical transcription certification (CMT) from AAMT. Science graduation, excellent listening and written English skills, good knowledge and understanding of medical terminologies are added advantage.

Do you need Certification on Medical transcription?
There is only a slight difference between a medical transcriptionist (MT) and certified medical transcriptionist (CMT). Anyone who did a medical transcription course through either online or local programs can join in a MT company to gain much knowledge and experience in medical transcription field. But to be a certified medical transcriptionist, you should possess at least 2 years of MT work experience in order to take up the Medical transcription certification exam conducted by American association of medical transcription (AAMT).

Getting the CMT certification is completely a personal choice. It depends on your commitment, time and financial status. If you are eager to get certification on medical transcription it would certainly be a professional achievement. The words CMT will distinguish yourself from other transcriber and gives you a badge of professional medical transcriptionist who is always a much preferred choice among MT employers.

How to become certified?
CMT examination is conducted by American Association of Medical Transcription (AAMT). The eligibility criterion to get enrolled for this exam is you should have at least 2 years of experience as a medical transcriber. This test is conducted throughout the year but you can appear only twice a year. After enrolling you can take up this test in any of the specified examination center.

Exam Preparation
There are numerous self-assessment products available in internet for free. You can get the help of many online resources to vigorously prepare for CMT examination.

Examination – Part I: First module of exam is multiple choices. This section contains 120 questions. This will basically test your knowledge in medical terms, English skill, medical transcription grammar, anatomy and physiology. The time allowed would be 3 hours and the fee would be $150.

Examination – Part II: The second part of this exam is a competency based exam it tests a transcriber’s ability to accurately document the 15 minutes physician dictation within 2 hours. Physician dictation might be on any specialty, so time-proven skills and experience on transcription is necessary to qualify in test. The examination fee is $150 for US citizens and $250 for people outside US.

CMT – What is it worth for?
• Certification on medical transcription boosts up your employment eligibility among the chunk of transcriptionist who does not possess this designation.
• You can demonstrate your skills by accurately transcribing physician dictations and proofreading the transcribed patient health record documents.
• CMT is essential for the ones who are aspiring to scale up their career to management and supervisory level.