Is online learning for me?

Take our free online learning assessment quiz. The online learning assessment quiz will help you determine if your learning style is suited to a distance learning environment. It takes only a few minutes to complete and you receive immediate feedback.

You may also want to take a free course demo, which will give you a general feel for how our online campus and courses work.

How do I register for courses on the AHIMA Distance Education Campus?

Click the How to Register tab above for step-by-step registration instructions.

How do I pay for courses and/or seminars?

When registering, you may pay online with a major credit card (Visa, MasterCard, or American Express), check or company purchase order. If paying by check or purchase order, your registration will be held in pending status until we receive payment. Mail payments to:

AHIMA: Distance Education and Training
Dept. 77-6331
Chicago, IL 60678-6331

AHIMA Distance Education does not participate in federal grant, loan, or veterans benefit programs (including guaranteed student loans offered through local banks).

Many employers provide tuition reimbursement programs through in-service grants, scholarships, and work-study programs. Check with your employer for details concerning financial assistance. Some employers require that a course or program be accredited. Click the Our Accreditations tab above to see which of our programs are accredited.

Community or civic groups also sponsor scholarships, and can be found through local libraries and other organizations.

Is my login the same for all my classes?

Yes, with some exceptions. Your ID and Password may be different for an "off-campus" site — some courses are hosted on the 3M, Webinservice, Alfred State University, or College of Saint Scholastica sites. If you've just started a new course, it may take a few days to get your password for an "off-campus" site.

After registering, how do I start my courses on the AHIMA Distance Education Campus?

Each course is made available to you depending on enrollment schedule and payment:

1. Most courses begin as soon as your registration and payment has been processed. Certain courses begin after course prerequisites have been verified and/or you choose to activate the course (this is true for most Coding Basics and Cancer Registry Management courses). For details, visit the course description page, which you can access using the "Quick Course Locator" near the upper-right corner of this web page.
   
   
2. Your payment must be fully processed (for example, credit card orders are processed immediately, but courses that are paid for by check or purchase order will not be available until payment has been received and cleared).

When your registration has been processed, you will receive an e-mail receipt. This e-mail contains a link to specific instructions on how to get started with your course or courses.

I can login and click on the course folder, but when I go to the course, there's nothing there. What's going on?

If you can login but can't see your courses, the problem may be that your home page is set to a proprietary page like MSN or another page that uses frames. Pages like MSN and Hotmail are displayed in frames within your browser and this conflicts with our course software. To correct the problem, create a bookmark to your current homepage so you can access it when you need to (it will no longer be the first screen you see). Then go to Internet Options and set your Home Page default to something neutral (like http://www.google.com/ or http://campus.ahima.org) or select the option BLANK.

What certificate do I get after completing a course?

For most courses, a certificate of completion is automatically presented after the student successfully completes the final exam. Specialty Advancement students receive certificates of completion upon completion of the entire program, courses and institute. Coding Basics students receive a certificate of completion after successfully completing all 4 clusters in the program.

How many Continuing Education Units (CEUs) do I receive after completing a course?

You can find information about CEUs awarded for each course on the main page for that particular course/program. Get to the main page by clicking the title of course/program in its Catalog listing, or select the title of the course/program in the Quick Course Locator pulldown (in the dark gold bar at the top of each page).

How long does it take to complete a course?

Completion times of self-paced courses will vary widely based on many factors, including reading speed, comprehension level, environmental distractions, etc. All courses must be completed within the time frame provided for course access. More information is available on the main page for a particular course/program. Get to the main page by clicking the title of course/program in its Catalog listing, or select the title of the course/program in the Quick Course Locator pulldown (in the dark gold bar at the top of each page).

What if I do not pass the exam?

If you are taking Anatomy and Physiology, Coding Basics or Cancer Registry Management courses, graded tests and the Final Exam may be taken only once. If your points total for all graded assessments is not high enough to pass (C or better), you will have to pay to retake the entire course. Most of the courses that provide continuing education opportunities to HIM professionals are designed to allow students to take the final exam at least twice.

Who do I contact if I have content or technical questions?
We encourage you to communicate with us by e-mail (rather than by telephone) because several people check the e-mail messages we receive each day, but only one person can access a question left in voicemail. Also, we require that many requests be sent to us in writing for our records.

Current students should post questions via the Course Support Request Form.

Prospective students can send questions using these e-mail addresses:
Audio Seminars: audio.seminars@ahima.org
Coding Basics and Anatomy and Physiology: coding.basics@ahima.org.
Coding Assessment and Training Solutions: cats.support@ahima.org.
Other courses and general information: distance.education@ahima.org.

I forgot my user name and password, what do I do?

Click here to request a login reminder. You will be able to retrieve your general AHIMA password through this link. However, if you have recently changed your general AHIMA password, your student password has remained the same. In this case, if you cannot remember your student login password, please contact us at distance.education@ahima.org.

As a student, how do I update my address, my password or other information?

To change the information kept with your AHIMA seven-digit ID number, go to Update Profile. Currently, your Distance Education student profile is not synchronized with your AHIMA profile, so when you change your information through the Update Profile feature it is not changed in your Student Profile and vice-versa. For example, if a student changed their password in their AHIMA profile, it would not change the password needed to login to their courses. And if they changed their address while registering for a course, the address would not change in their AHIMA profile.

When updating information, we recommend that you (1) change your information via AHIMA's Update Profile, then (2) e-mail distance.education@ahima.org to tell us what changes you made.