Behavioral and Psychiatric Health Technician Program Description
Learn in-demand skills to help others address common behavioral health and psychiatric issues.
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Overview
With elite certification preparation, 394 hours of thorough—fully online—content, and an intense focus on career readiness, this program provides the knowledge, skills, and experience employers are looking for. This training prepares Learners to sit for both the American Association of Psychiatric Technicians Level 1 certification exam and the Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist exam from the National Healthcareer Association. But our program is way more than basic training. It’s a career-defining stepping stone designed to help you boost your employability and elevate your job prospects.
Program Timeline
With 393 hours of online training, Learners have 12 months of access to complete their program. 10 hours of dedicated training each week is recommended to complete your training before access expires.
12 months of program access
Self-paced learning
Training Format
All our programs are built with flexibility in mind—and to accommodate busy schedules. You can train wherever and whenever you like, so long as you have access to a computer and a strong wi-fi connection.
Learn from home (or anywhere)
Study online (anytime)
Support
You’re not in this alone. We’ll be by your side from sign-up all the way through completion. If you run into any issues along the way, our Learner support teams will help you troubleshoot the issue so you can get right back in the game.
1:1 support
Phone, live chat, and email
Behavioral Health and Psychiatric Technician Program Courses
Our 393-hour Behavioral Health and Psychiatric Technician program is divided into 15 courses, which cover a number of topics, including HIPAA standards, pharmacology basics, career-readiness skills, and patient education.
Program Orientation
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Initiate the Behavioral Health and Psychiatric Technician program.
Pharmacology Basics
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Identify the classifications of drugs.
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Review indications, side effects, and adverse reactions of various classifications of drugs.
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Interpret accepted abbreviations used in reference to medications.
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Explain how to use drug reference guides.
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Describe the rights of proper drug administration.
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Describe the routes of administration for medication.
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Explain how to prepare and administer the most common types of medications.
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Identify the four steps of pharmacokinetics.
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Explore the guidelines for sending orders for prescriptions.
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Calculate correct dosage of medication for administration.
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Convert between household and metric systems of measurement.
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Identify commonly used abbreviations in medication dosage calculation.
Infection Control
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Review the causes and diagnostic methods of various infectious and communicable diseases.
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Explore the protective measures required to prevent infection.
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Outline the treatments and protective measures required to manage and control the spread of infectious disease.
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Identify procedures and protocols for responding to infection control.
Testing and Laboratory Procedures
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Identify how specimens are collected and handled.
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Explore procedures and processes used in obtaining blood and urine samples.
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Outline the standard components of vision and hearing screening tests.
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Review common techniques and processes frequently used in medical laboratories.
Patient Care Coordination and Education
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Review how to administer and coordinate general patient care according to professional best practices.
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Explore the role and responsibilities in administering patient care.
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Explore the role and responsibilities in facilitating patient education.
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Summarize basic communication best practices and potential barriers to effective communication with patients.
Medical Administrative Assistant
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Describe the differences between common healthcare delivery models.
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Describe the types of services typically offered in medical offices, including general and specialty services.
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Define ancillary services and alternative therapies.
Communication and Customer Service
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Identify the various types and styles of communication used in a healthcare office.
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Review how verbal, non-verbal, and written communication skills contribute to patient experience and outcome in a healthcare office.
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Identify professional communication techniques for a healthcare office, including interviewing techniques and use of medical terminology and patient-accessible language.
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Explore modified communication for patients with special considerations.
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Outline protocols for providing customer service for a healthcare office.
Electronic Medical Records
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Explain the importance of clinical standards in the development of interoperable electronic health records.
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Demonstrate an understanding of how electronic health records are used in physician practices and other outpatient settings.
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Demonstrate an understanding of how electronic health records are used in hospitals.
Medical Laws and Ethics
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Describe the structure of the healthcare industry and how it relates to the medical office profession.
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Identify law and regulations related to the healthcare workplace.
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Describe how law flows from the constitution to the courtroom.
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Identify criminal acts and intentional torts.
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Recognize what makes a contract and who can contract.
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Identify medical malpractice and other lawsuits.
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Explain the characteristics, ownership, and confidentiality of the health record.
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Recognize the importance of the laws and ethics of patient confidentiality.
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Explain professional ethics and how they apply to patients.
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Recognize ethical issues surrounding the beginning of life.
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Recognize ethical issues surrounding death and dying.
EKG and Cardiovascular
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Identify the basic anatomy of the heart.
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List the steps needed to ensure proper functioning of ECG/EKG equipment (calibration, standardization).
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List the equipment and supplies needed to perform an ECG/EKG procedure.
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Identify the placement of standard limb leads and precordial (chest) leads on a patient undergoing an ECG/EKG procedure.
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Identify waveforms, intervals, and segments in EKG/ECG readings .
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Identify artifacts, signal distortions, and electrical interference in EKG/ECG readings.
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Describe ways to minimize artifacts during EKG/ECG readings.
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Describe abnormal or emergent ECG/EKG results, including arrhythmia and dysrhythmia.
Career Success in Healthcare
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Define “professionalism" and “success” in your own terms.
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Differentiate between long-, medium-, and short-range goals.
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Assess and develop your time management skills.
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Develop plans to enhance your creative and critical thinking.
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Use an effective decision-making process to maximize your chances for success.
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Describe methods to maximize verbal, nonverbal, and written communication.
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Describe the healthcare system.
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Describe and discuss organizational structure, communication channels, and lines of authority.
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Develop an understanding of the factors that affect group dynamics and use these skills to maximize your leadership potential.
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Explain ethics and how they relate to health care professionals.
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Define continuing education, certification, and licensure.
Psychology and Psychiatric Disorders
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Develop a working knowledge of the content domains of psychology.
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Identify key characteristics of major content domains in psychology (e.g., cognition and learning, developmental, biological, and socio-cultural).
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Analyze scientific reasoning to interpret behavior and distinguish normal behavior from abnormal behavior.
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Incorporate several appropriate levels of complexity (e.g., cellular, individual, group/system, and society/cultural) to explain behavior.
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Interpret, design, and conduct basic psychological research and describe research methods used by psychologists including their respective advantages and disadvantages.
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Use scientific reasoning to interpret psychological phenomena and identify basic biological, psychological, and social components of behavioral explanations (e.g., inferences, observations, and operational definitions and interpretation).
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Incorporate several appropriate levels of complexity (e.g., cellular, individual, group/system, and society/cultural) to explain behavior.
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Develop a working knowledge of the content domains of psychology and identify key characteristics of major content domains in psychology (e.g., cognition and learning).
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Apply ethical standards to psychological science and practice and discuss relevant ethical issues that reflect principles in the APA Code of Ethics.
Fundamentals of HIPAA
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Describe the basic requirements of HIPAA.
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Understand the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
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Understand the HIPAA Security Rule.
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Describe the HITECH Act.
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Explain Regulations for Business Associates.
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Summarize HIPAA Documentation and Training.
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Review Applied HIPAA Security for Healthcare Professionals.
Advocacy, Mentoring and Empowerment
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Describes our assumptions about human behavior and social organizations.
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Establishes a set of specific goals or outcomes based on the underlying assumptions.
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Describes the worker’s actions to achieve the specific goals.
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Engage in critical thinking related to the helping profession, social work practices and provide an analysis of quantitative and qualitative research methods and research findings.
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Demonstrate an understanding of the worker-client therapeutic alliance and the utilization of empathy when interacting with clients.
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Gain insight and look at the complexity of the human communication process in social work.
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Learn about appropriate intervention strategies based on the assessment, research knowledge, and values and preferences of clients and constituencies and how to select and use appropriate methods for evaluation of outcomes.
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Demonstrate and verbalize and understanding of the Model of the Work Phase as a mode for understanding the dynamics of practice with clients over time.
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Define and understand the Stages of Ending (Kubler-Ross, Schwartz), Denial. Indirect and direct expressions of anger, Mourning, Trying it on for size, The farewell-party syndrome.
Program Completion
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Prepare to take the next steps after program completion.
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Behavioral and Psychiatric Health Technician Certifications
CareerStep’s online Behavioral and Psychiatric Health Technician training covers the knowledge and skills you need to successfully sit for industry-recognized certification. We want to support our learners in securing the certification that fits based upon your career goals and current job requirements. Your program includes up to two different exam vouchers for the certifications below relevant to your training — a significant value add of several hundred dollars.
American Association of Psychiatric Technicians Level 1
The AAPT-Level 1 is a voluntary national certification exam to test knowledge of psychiatric technology — certified by the American Association of Psychiatric Technicians. The level 1 exam has questions concerning basic areas of nursing, medical terminology and mental illness.
Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist
Demonstrate you have the Electronic Health Record skills employers seek with the CEHRS from the National Healthcareer Association.
Documents
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