Medical assistants are professionals who work under the supervision and guidance of medical doctors or any other healthcare professionals. These people are those responsible for certain clinical and administrative tasks, such as getting and upgrading the medical records of patients, filling out insurance policy forms, answering phone calls, and finding a patients health background. There are certain states, however, that can let a certified medical assistant to do more complicated tasks. This article mainly focuses on career as a medical assistant and provides information to help you select good medical assisting schools.
EDUCATION
If you want to be a medical assistant, the basic requirement is for you to have a high school diploma. Simply put, all you will need to do is take as many classes as you can on the subjects of math and science. This is to prepare you for your career as a medical assistant. But ideally, a student is advised to undergo a professional education through short-term programs in medical assistant colleges, junior colleges, vocational schools or any other community colleges.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
The basic duties of a certified medical assistant is to do some administrative and clinical tasks. They work under the supervision of a physician in a medical setting like clinics. You may think that their tasks are not that important, but the truth is that they do a lot in making the operations in the clinic efficient. The most frequent management duties that medical assistants do are organizing doctors appointments, answering the telephone, taking care of the patients medical records, along with billing patients. In terms of their clinical responsibilities, they may be asked to get blood from patients, perform particular tests, and so forth.
EXAM QUALIFICATIONS
The students who’re aiming to take the Certified Medical Assistant or CMA exam must be a graduate from a related program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health. Those that wish to finish off their formal education in medical assistant schools in 30 days will also be welcome to have the exam. Typically, the official results of the exam are released and sent to the takers 10 weeks following the exam date. A medical assistant with a certification would need to recertify every 5 years.
WAGE
The typical wage of a certified medical assistant actually depends on the period of time he or she has been in the industry. It’s estimated that a medical assistant who has been in the business for no longer than 5 years will make an average of $25,000 every year. In contrast, those who have been in this industry for up to 19 years can easily earn around $28,000 a year. Finally, people that have over 20 years of expertise will get approximately $32,000 a year.
