The ‘baby boom’ generation is slowly reaching its retirement age. As this happens, the demand for more and more healthcare professionals is continually on the rise. Health care facilities are sprouting out everywhere and the need for medical assistants is also surging up. Medical assistants perform different tasks from patient care responsibilities to many administrative duties. Medical assistant programs are getting popular these days among people who would want to jumpstart a career in the health care field.
What are the roles played by a medical administrative assistant?
Administrative medical assistants deal more with the daily office tasks and responsibilities. These members in the health care team are responsible for submitting insurance claim forms, updating clients’ files & records, setting appointments between doctors and patients, and arranging hospital admissions. Medical administrative assistants often do the clinic’s bookkeeping and billing. A medical office assistant is in charge of the office’s routine office duties such as answering phone calls, greeting patients, sorting mail, answering correspondence and type letters & memos.
What should you expect from a clinical medical assistant training course?
Enrolling in a medical assistant training program allows individuals to be more competitive in this profession. A high quality clinical education program prepares a person to do complex tasks and responsibilities in a clinical setting. Clinical medical assistant training programs would include clinical and laboratory procedures. Students enrolled under this program are trained to perform urinalysis, phlebotomy and the use of common equipments. A medical assistant curriculum may also include pharmacology, drug dosage calculation & administration, electrocardiography, microbiology, patient care techniques and physical assessment. These programs would also tackle organizational aspects of the profession with subjects such as record management, patient reception and common computer applications. Most programs would also include course instruction, externship program, hands on equipment trainings and job placement assistance.
Clinical medical assistant job description: Know the facts
Medical assistants help keep physician offices, clinics and other health centers handle transactions in a smooth and efficient manner. Depending on a clinic’s needs, medical assistants can perform several administrative, clerical and clinical duties. A clinical assistant’s job description may vary depending on an office’s location, type and scope of practice. In small clinics, medical assistants perform a combination of both administrative and clinical duties. In bigger practices and larger health care settings, medical assistants tend to specialize in clerical, administrative, or clinical practice. Clinical medical assistants perform tasks such as vital signs taking & recording, doing medical histories, collecting & preparing urine, blood specimens to be sent for diagnostics, and conducting on site screening tests. A clinical medical assistant’s job description depends on the specific state laws. A clinical assistant’s role is bound to be more medically related compared to administrative and clerical assistants. Their tasks would likely include preparing clients for physical exams, taking vital signs & patient histories and assisting doctors during examinations. They can also explain procedures to clients, call in drug prescriptions to pharmacies, sterilize physician’s instruments and collect several lab specimens. Clinical assistants may also remove sutures, take ECGs and draw blood samples. Clinical medical assistant salary may range from $25K to as much as $50K annually.