Allied Schools Medical Transcription Unqualified Staff, Unprofessional, No grading structure. Laguna Hills California

I am a military spouse who signed up for Allied's Medical Transcription program in 2011 because I thought it would ba a good way to be able to supplement my families income even if we were forced to move around a lot.  Allied was recommended to me by the military education department and by AHDI, the regulatory body for medical transcriptionist, so I thought I had done all of my homework.  I was, unfortunately dead wrong. 

After they had signed me up and took my money, they only sent me a fraction of the materials that I actually needed to complete the course.  Also, a very critical cd-rom they sent me was factory defective.  When I called to have them send me another one, their staff was very rude and insisted that I needed to pay over $150 for a new disk.  After being passed around from manager to manager and then finally to a tech support person, they conceded that the disk was in fact defective and they finally sent me a new one.  This kind of stress, however, was something I was not expecting.

Then, about two months into the course, I needed technical assistance and I wasn't understanding their instructions over the phone, so I decided to go down there and get help from someone who could show me what I was doing wrong.  When I got there, however, what I found was that they were totally dumfounded to actually see a real live student.  They didn't know where to send me or who to contact to help me because "student's never come here," and it's just a boiler room/sales hub.  There's no Allied Business School, I found out, it's entirely on line and over the phone.  They finally found someone to help me (this person's only qualifications for advising me in this course was that she had taken it only months before).  I was set up in what looked like a closet and hurried out after they got me set up with the problems I was having.  Wow.

A few months later, I called the educational support because all of my homework assignments were receiving failing grades even though I thought I was doing everything I was being asked to.  When my educational advisor, Katherine B. came on the line, she proceeded to tell me that I needed to insert mistakes into my reports even though they were pristine so that the "graders" could see the mark-ups and then give me full credit.  So, I had to add extra "ands" and "is's" and commas to all of my good reports just to pass the homework section of my course.  I was astonished that I was actually being rewarded for making mistakes and penalized for doing well.

Then, I begin the practical portion of the class and I begin to run into a whole new set of issues.  I've found that there is no consistency in grading procedures and policies between each individual grader.  I would submit one report that would be failed miserably by one grader and then passed with flying colors by the next without any explanation.  The head of the department, Beth T., admitted that each grader has their own ideas of what is correct and incorrect and that the Book of Style is open to interpretation.  This flies in the face of AHDI regulations and how an MT school is supposed to be run. 

AHDI insists that all grading be based solely on the BOS and nothing more...that is the industry standard.  Not at Allied apparently.  Beth T., I've also found is not even qualified to have anything to do with an MT school since she is a CMT-R (meaning she retired her CMT certification who knows how long ago and is no longer expected to adhere to AHDI standards), and by AHDI's own accreditation rules, all MT instructors must have a current CMT certification.  What about the graders?  Who are the graders?  There's no way to know who they are or what their current qualifications are since Beth holds all the information on them and refuses to divulge this.

I have some pretty damning emails from this woman admitting that all of this is true.  I'm amazed that they're still able to run an MT school with this level of incompetence.

Now, I'm one final away from finishing all of the courses on my blackboard.  All of my tuition has been paid in full.  However, I have just recently learned that this is far from the end of my journey with Allied.  Once I pass my current class, I'm supposed to enroll in and pay for an "Advanced MT" course in order to receive my certificate of completion.  This was never mentioned to me when I signed up.  I was told by Sue N., my recruiter, that once I finished all of the classes on my blackboard and paid all of my tuition, I would receive my certification and be able to work.  Now, I'm feeling scammed.  Like, what's going to happen after I pass the next course?  Will there be an Advanced Advanced MT course to take?  This is predatory and criminal.  I've worked very hard to get to where I am now despite Allied's unscrupulous business and educational practices and I deserve to be able to work with a certificate behind my name.

I have notified local, state and federal authorities as well as AHDI, who assured me that this is a very serious issue that needs to be rectified immediately. 

I would advise anyone thinking about going through an MT certification course to stay far, far away from this school.  I believe it is a scam and it's far more trouble than it's worth.