The Value of an EHR Certificate in Finding a Job

My sister in law recently told me that she was in a medical education program and that she had the option to add on an EHR certificate as well. She asked me if I thought that getting the EHR certificate would help her get a job.

While not all certificates are created equal, my response to her was she should probably save her money. However, my advice might have been different if I was talking to someone else. What you have to understand is that I know that my sister-in-law really only wants to work on the medical side of things. She doesn’t want to one day work on the technology side of things. So, it didn’t make much sense for her to do the EHR certificate.

If instead she was interested in eventually becoming an EHR trainer, an EHR consultant or some other role within the EHR and health IT team, then it might be worth her time and money. Plus, if you’re someone that doesn’t know if you’d like the EHR world or not, then these certificates can be a great way for you to explore that world and know if you want to dig in a little deeper. We’ve seen a lot of people use the EHR Office Proficiency training as a way to do just that.

The challenge with all of these certificates is that I’ve never heard of a recruiter who searched out these really simple EHR certificates (vendor specific EHR certs are a different story). Instead, my experience has been that these simple EHR certificates act as a tie breaker between two candidates that are otherwise equal. So, there is value in the EHR certificate when it comes to finding a job, but not as much as people would like you to think.

Also, be a little careful going after certificate after certificate if it’s not paired with real world experience. We all know the people with all these certificates that can’t get hired because those certificates aren’t paired with real world experience that gives those certificates real meaning.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

1 Comment

  • Having an extra certification might make you look good on paper, but is that certificate going to get you the job you want? It takes time and money to earn that paper, but why bother if it’s not the career your want? What if it actually traps you on a career path you never wanted to go down.

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