Becoming a medical assistant can be a great career choice and offer a lot of ongoing opportunities down the road. There are many certification programs available that offer the right training and skills that are necessary in order to succeed in this type of career.
Basically medical assistants are responsible for ensuring that everything runs smoothly in the place that they work whether it’s a doctor’s office, a clinic, or a hospital. In order to give you a clearer indication of what is involved; here is an outline of a medical assistant job description within a few different roles:
Front Office Medical Assistant: An important part of the medical office assistant job description is to handle the busy front desk of the place of employment. At the front office or the reception, a medical assistant has to perform duties such as:
- Handling and answering external as well as internal phone calls and transferring calls to the appropriate departments.
- Managing patient’s appointments, according to the doctor’s schedule.
- Giving registration forms to the patients and getting all the necessary information filled from them.
- Handling data entry tasks.
Administrative Medical Assistant: A certified medical assistant job description also involves a lot of administrative activities. Here are just some of the duties.
- Registration, filing and maintenance of medical records and documents.
- Maintaining financial records and performing accounting tasks.
- Initiating and maintaining correspondence with patients and insurance companies.
- Explaining hospital admission procedures to the visitors.
- Maintaining records of purchased equipment and other medical supplies.
- Processing medical insurance claims, medical billing and electronic claims, and incorporating correct coding procedures (if the work is done in the office itself, and not outsourced).
Clinical Medical Assistant: Apart from the administrative work, a medical assistant is also responsible for a number of clinical activities such as:
- Drawing blood for the blood donations.
- Applying and changing dressings.
- Working in the medical labs, if required.
- Obtaining daily observations of the patient’s health and reporting them to the concerned doctor.
- Maintaining health records of the patient and producing it, whenever necessary.
- Collecting urine samples and sending them for diagnosis.
To obtain a certification and further to work as a certified medical assistant, it is necessary to have a higher secondary or any equivalent diploma or technical course certificate. However, you will be preferred more by the employers, if you have an Associate of Applied Science degree from any college holding the accreditation of CAAHEP (Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs). The training program for medical assistant includes training on all the important administrative and clinical procedures. As well there is information provided about training on communication skills and front office grooming.
There are many variables depending again on the job placement. If you work at a hospital there may be different expectations than at a small private medical office. So you need to find out more information directly from the place where you are interested in working.
So whichever place you decide to work, you are choosing a very rewarding career that will be exciting and stable. Good luck!