Glossary
Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS)
The Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS) is a voluntary credential from AHDI for people who create healthcare documentation. It is awarded after an exam of 120 questions, and it is a prerequisite for the CHDS.
Updated October 17, 20264 cited facts, each traced to its source
Also called RHDS, CHDS, certified medical transcriptionist.
The Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS) is a credential from the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) for people who create clinical documents from dictation. AHDI describes the RHDS exam as a voluntary credentialing exam for people who want to become Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialists 1. Voluntary means you choose to sit for it.
The exam tests listening and typing, not only recall
The exam has 120 questions in three formats: multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank transcription against audio, and SRT editing against audio 2. The two audio formats are the part most relevant to dictation. They test whether you can hear a recording and produce accurate text from it, which is the same skill a dictated note depends on.
The RHDS comes before the CHDS
The RHDS is also the first step to a second credential. AHDI says holding the RHDS is a requirement before a candidate can earn the CHDS, its second-level credential 3. So a person who wants the higher credential has to pass the RHDS exam first.
Current medical transcriptionists can skip the RHDS exam
Not everyone starts at the RHDS. AHDI says current Certified Medical Transcriptionists may skip the RHDS exam and sit for the CHDS exam directly 4. This is why a job posting that asks for "certified medical transcriptionist" can mean a different credential from the RHDS. Read the posting and check the exact credential name.
Where the credential fits in medical documentation
Medical transcription is one route into clinical documentation. The medical transcription guide covers the job, and the medical dictation guide covers the software side. For practitioners who document encounters in real time, see AI medical scribes. If you want to check your own accuracy before an exam, our guide to dictation mistakes explains the common errors.
Related terms are the transcriptionist, the medical scribe and the transcription line rate, which is how transcribed work is measured.
Evidence
Every number on this page, with where it comes from. Open a fact to see the exact words in its source.
- 1.AHDI describes the Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist exam as a voluntary credentialing exam for people who want to become Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialists.
Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity, Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI), n.d. · Original
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Related terms
- Dictation for Work: Doctors, Lawyers, Writers, StudentsThe topic this term belongs to
- Back-end speech recognitionBack-end speech recognition is a workflow in which the dictated audio is recognized and then edited by someone else, usually a transcriptionist, before it is signed. Its main trade-off is the cost and time of the second pass against the writer's own editing effort.
- CopytakerA copytaker was a typist in a newspaper office who took down stories that reporters dictated over the telephone. The Collins English Dictionary defines the role this way, and it predates the computer-based filing that replaced it.
- Dictation templateA dictation template is a block of text saved under a short spoken phrase, so one phrase inserts the whole block. Dragon calls these auto-texts, and Microsoft's Dragon Medical One guide documents the command that creates one from selected text.
- Electronic health record (EHR)An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital record of a patient's health information, built up over time from visits across care settings. The federal eCQI glossary also calls it an electronic medical record (EMR), and it is where dictated and typed notes end up.
- Front-end speech recognitionFront-end speech recognition is a workflow in which the person who dictates also reviews, corrects and signs the text, instead of passing the audio to someone else. The term is most common in radiology, where it is set against back-end transcription.
- Medical scribeA medical scribe is a person, or more recently an AI tool, that records what happens in a clinical visit and writes it into the chart so the clinician can focus on the patient. The clinician remains responsible for the note and must check and sign it.
- Pajama timePajama time is the record-keeping that clinicians finish after their clinic day ends, often at home in the evening. A 2017 study of primary care clinicians measured 86 minutes of EHR work per weekday after clinic hours.
- ScopistA scopist edits the transcripts of official proceedings that court reporters create. Scopists are typically paid by the page, starting from $1.00 to $1.50 per page, and the role is also called transcript editor.
- SOAP noteA SOAP note is a structured clinical note with four parts: Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan. The format was developed by Larry Weed, and a StatPearls reference article describes it as a widely used documentation method for clinicians.
- Transcription line rateA transcription line is a unit of 65 characters, and the line count is the number of such units in a document. The transcription line rate is the price paid for each line, so the unit controls how transcribed work is measured.