Becoming certified as either a Registered Healthcare Documentation Specialist (RHDS) or a Certified Healthcare Documentation Specialist (CHDS) is very important to your HDS career: in fact, it's more than just a bunch of letters after your name. Try to get your credentials as soon as possible after you graduate from your Medical Transcription course, while everything is still fresh in your mind. Even before you get your first job, study for your credentialing exam. As a new medical transcriptionist who is not familiar with credentialing, you might think "why should I bother, it doesn't necessarily mean that I get paid more!"