MTIA Advocates for Credentialed
Workforce in Healthcare Documentation

WASHINGTON DC, August 5, 2008 — Both the evolving complexity of healthcare documentation in the EHR and the need to promote the role of a highly skilled knowledge worker in the face of enabling technologies prompted the Medical Transcription Industry Association to release a strong statement this week in support of professional credentialing. The Statement on Credentialing for Healthcare Documentation Workers (found here) outlines the association’s official position on the need to transition its workforce to a credentialed status, urging MTSO employers to adopt hiring practices that give preference to employment candidates with RMT and CMT credentials, depending on role and work setting.

“This statement in support of credentialing drives home the message MTIA has been delivering for awhile now around the need for standards and best practices in the business sector,” shares MTIA President Jay Cannon. “In order to promote the value of a skilled, analytical knowledge worker in accurately capturing and recording healthcare data, the industry needs to embrace the credentialing benchmarks that support that proposition, and MTIA is recommending a transitional approach to moving the workforce toward that goal.”

The statement offers four recommendations to transcription service organizations related to the adoption of hiring policies and marketing language that demonstrate a preference for credentialed workers. Where application of these recommendations is concerned, MTIA is also clearly placing responsibility for the cost associated with credentialing on its workforce. Transcription service owners are urged to transition employees to a credentialed status even if they are unable to fund that transition.

“MTIA recognizes that there is a measurable cost associated with preparing for, achieving, and maintaining professional credentials,” states Peter Preziosi, PhD, CAE, MTIA chief executive officer, “and while some services do choose to invest workforce development resources in assisting their employees with this process, it is certainly not the responsibility of employers to do so, and MTIA is not mandating that here. MTs and editors entering the workforce and those currently employed will need to approach professional credentials the same way all other allied health workers do – as a necessary investment to engage in professional practice in this industry.”

This statement in support of professional credentialing demonstrates the association’s commitment to its partnership with AHDI and their mutual goal of positioning the documentation sector for success in both the EHR and the future of healthcare delivery. This position statement can be viewed at the MTIA website (www.mtia.com) under Resources/Best Practice Standards.

MTIA acknowledges that there is a measurable cost associated with preparing for, obtaining, and maintaining the professional credentials referenced here. It is important to note that the Association is not including in this recommendation the
mandate or suggestion that the responsibility for those costs be shouldered, at all or in part, by the transcription service organization/employer. MTIA believes that healthcare documentation specialists should approach the profession and the
industry with the same commitment to professional development and credentialing that characterizes all other allied health professions. Certainly some employers do and will choose to invest workforce development resources in employee credentialing, but healthcare documentation workers should neither expect nor
assume this as standard practice, and employers who engage in preferential hiring practices for credentialed candidates or plan to transition a current workforce to a credentialed status are encouraged to do so even where they choose not to assist
with those expenses.

The one ray of hope is that this whole thing will backfire and MTs will simply refuse to cooperate, at which time MTSO will either back off trying to make credentialing mandatory or else they'll offer financial incentives in order to coax MTs into going along with the program.