PARCA certifications seen as key to career change

Meredith Quinn, newly certified PACS
administrator

This month, PARCA eNews highlights its certification program with a profile of Meredith Quinn who recently earned her CPAS Technical, CPAS Clinical and CPSA exams all within a few days. Meredith started as a pharmacy technician and worked for several different pharmacies before changing to medical coding in Kansas City. She then expanded her skills to include coding, compliance and auditing for a number of hospitals. After a brief stint at Cerner she became Medical Coder and Auditor for Adventist Health. While pursuing her interest in nuclear medicine, she came across a PACS administration text book by Herman Oosterwijk and became inspired to pursue a career in PACS administration. Using a self-study approach, she passed her three PACS certifications in a single week. She lives with her husband of 10  years in Kansas City, Missouri. PARCA eNews spoke to her by phone to learn about her experience with PARCA and the certification process.

Q. To get started, tell me a little bit about your experience in healthcare and then your current position and then what motivated you to take the PACS tests?

For the past seven years, I've been an auditor and compliance officer for hospital health systems. I happened to be really interested in nuclear medicine. I read about it in my spare time. One day, I happened to stumble onto the PACS Fundamentals book by Herman (Oosterwijk) and I just couldn't put it down. So I just decided to start studying for the tests and ended up taking all three exams at once.

Q So you are really technology driven, what are your goals then for your career? What are you thinking about doing with your certifications?

I would like to start getting into PACS Administration. I'm also, in my spare time since searching for jobs has kind of been halted with the pandemic, I have been studying for my Microsoft Solutions architect exams.

Q. Why did you choose the certifications that you chose to study for?

I chose those because they involved more topics as opposed to taking just one test, by taking three, I felt that I would cover more subject matter.

Q. How difficult were the courses and how long did it take you to earn certification from start to finish? 

From the very first the time I read Herman’s text book it probably took about a year and I just studied for all three at the same time.

Q. What did you find most challenging or interesting about the courses?

Courses?

Q. The courses that you took to prepare for this certification?

I actually didn't take any courses. I used Herman’s study guides and I made my own study guide from my experience auditing radiology and kind of put the two together and studied for them.

Q. That’s very interesting. Tell me more about your job in a little bit more detail about it and how it touched on radiology?

For the past seven years, the hospital system I came from was in Kansas City before I started employment with Cerner and Adventist. I audited interventional radiology for them.

Q. What does that mean, audited?

I look at all documentation. You are internally auditing for compliance issues that could come up from an external auditing firm.

Q. How does that intersect with the PACS Imaging part of it?

It doesn't really but you have to know everything in order to audit something. You have to know the machines, know if they're within compliance standards, you have to know all the surgeries in order to make sure they're being billed out correctly.

Q. What do you intend to do? Are you planning to someday become a PACS administrator?

Yes, that’s my goal, yes.

Q. How well-prepared do you feel with your certifications?

I feel very prepared, but you can only go so far before you just need experience, but I definitely feel like I've learned very valuable information from all the study guides and all of the text books.

Q. Did you talk to Herman on your own or did you just buy his study guides and studied from there?

I just bought his study guides and studied them. 

Q. You're a very interesting person to all of a sudden decide to become a PACS administrator. How did you choose PARCA? There are certifications from other organizations, why PARCA?

It was just like I said, I researched all of them, and then at the end of it I decided that the PARCA certifications were the best because there are more tests and I felt like it was just a better education.

Q. Okay then, so what would you you say to someone who might be considering PACS Administration or who might be considering taking the tests for certifications.

I would say go for it. I think that you just have to keep learning in life. If it sparks your interest then go for it. I think that we never should stop learning and always be open to new ideas, and I think especially for women too with our first female, Vice President-elect, I think that we need to start entering traditionally more male-dominated fields.

Q. That brings me to one of my questions, what attracted you to the field of PACS Administration that is very male dominated?

I think as the years have come as gone on I've gone more towards technology. I think originally I started out more in English in college, but once you realize who you are as a person, I realized that I was more interested in the technical side of things.

Q. Do you have any misgivings or apprehensions about how you might be received as you apply for jobs in PACS administration or do you feel like the doors have been opened for women.

I think I don't have any apprehension because I think you just have to keep pushing through and eventually you'll make it.

Q. You’re to be congratulated for passing your certifications, that is quite an achievement and you should be proud of that, they are not easy to obtain.

Thank you that’s very nice of you to say.