Versatility of medical assistant job profile!

A medical assistant is one who carries duties at the front desk, as well as at the backend office in a health care center. Other than doctors and nurses, medical aides are also vital health care providers that ensures effective smooth running in the hospitals or clinics.

A candidate pursuing medical assistant profile as a career needs to undertake versatile duties which are categorized in two types: administrative and clinical. Now let's have a detailed look at those duties:
Administrative: This part comprise of duties that are undertaken at the front office. To name a few are:

• Schedule appointments: The first and basic task of an assistant is to schedule appointments of the patients. Either they would book appointments via answering the phone calls of the patients or via checking online bookings.
• Maintain patient’s records: Be it medical history, treatment taken or present condition of the patients; all points are needed to be recorded and that is the duty of an assistant. It would be helpful for the doctors as they can anytime see the reports of the patient for their further treatment.
• Maintain bills: Likewise it’s important to maintain records of the patients, maintaining of bills is also equally important. This is because if any mistake occurs in the bills then it would cause massive losses to the hospital or clinic.
• Answering telephone: An assistant also needs to handle calls. It’s their duty to answer the queries of the patients like is the doctor has arrived, are their reports ready or at what time does the clinic open and so on anything related to this matter.
• Filling insurance forms: Patients who have insurance policies can submit their medical claims. Thus aide also needed to fill the insurance forms, as well as talk to the insurance company regarding the same.

Clinical: This part comprise of duties that are undertaken at the backend called laboratory of the office. To name a few of the duties are:

• Taking vital signs: Besides carrying out administrative tasks, taking vital signs of patients is also the duty of an assistant. This would comprise of taking of blood tests and other various human specimens.
• Prepare equipment’s: In order to carry out lab tests, equipment’s are needed to be kept ready, beforehand. This is because patient would not like to wait in examination for a long time.
• Prepare patients: To carry the testing process smoothly, it’s important to make the patients aware of the testing procedure, beforehand.

To carry out all the above mentioned duties efficiently, a candidate needs to undergo medical assistant training program from a certified institute.

An overview of the medical assistant career

Duties of medical assistants involve performing some clerical and routine tasks. Their main responsibility is to maintain the efficiency of the medical unit they work in. Usually these professionals are found in the offices of chiropractors, podiatrists, physicians, etc. The nature of their job differs from that of a physician's assistant. The job of the latter involves, treating, diagnosing and examining the patients under the guidelines of the physician they are working for.

The factors affecting medical assistant career and the nature of their job responsibility are several. Chief among them is the office setting, size of medical care provided and the area of specialty of the physician they work for. If the area of practice is small, a medical assistant would be referred to as ‘generalist’ performing administrative and medical duties.

In a small office, their reporting authority is the physician or the office manager. In case of big hospital where the area of practice is large, they may specialize in a particular medical field and are supervised by the administrators of the department. Some of the administrative duties these medical professionals may have to perform can be answering the phone calls, greeting the patients, updating medical records, making appointments, completing the insurance forms and associated formalities, managing bills, and setting up the laboratory settings, etc.

As part of their addition responsibilities, they may have to organize, maintain and buy medical materials such as equipment, etc. They may also have to clean the examining and waiting rooms.

Those assistant who specialize in certain area of medical practice perform a wider range of tasks. For example an ophthalmic medical assistant would help out opthalmologists in providing eye care. They conduct tests to document the vision and functioning of eye muscles for diagnosing the vision problems. They may be required to help out patients in proper removal, insertion and taking basic care of contact lenses.

Similarly an opthalmic medical assistant would perform surgery assistance, x-ray development, cast making, etc. A specialized assistant may provide medication to their patients as directed by the senior physician.

After successfully completing the medical assistance training, a candidate can work in a number of medical areas. Majority of them work under physician and doctor's offices. While others work in both in and outpatient department of private and public hospitals! Around ten percent of these professionals work in a specialty care department and offices under physicians like podiatrists and chiropractors. The remaining ones administer their knowledge in outpatient care facilities or under the state government agencies.

Medical assistance is one of the best career choices these days

The medical career is usually thought to be a safe and secure option for someone wanting to make a long time routine. However, the recessional nature of the world markets may even have harmed the disposition of the regular medical career options such as that of doctors and nurses. In this situation, you need to understand the importance of diversifying into other areas of the line which might give you an additive scope for handling the current problems in the industry.

One of the best options in this regard is choosing the medical assistant career. This is one of the safest possible options in the industry, because they are in demand due to their unique set of key responsibility areas.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the medical assistants are basically the right hands of doctors, and they are in charge of a medical scene in the absence of a doctor. This is what puts a great deal of responsibility on their shoulders making it rather mandatory for them to be on their tip toes throughout the day.

The main and most basic task of medical assistants is to keep in check the general health and wellness of the patients. This is done by monitoring the vitals of the patients and maintaining the basic records and charts for them.
Medical assistants are the assistants to doctors while in surgeries and while giving a brief up about the case to them. Another major function of the medical assistants is towards the managerial side, and there is need for precision and care to perform these tasks carefully.

Preparing to become a good medical assistant

The first most essential step that you need to take here is enroll yourself into a good training institute that can help you get good education. This shall not only fetch you a degree, but shall also be able to prepare you for the actual situations that you are going to face in the work atmosphere when you are on roll.

Make sure that the medical assistant training institute that you choose is worth the amount of time and money that you are going to spend on it. It is essential to receive education from a certified institute that can be trusted for quality education as well as adherence with the standards of the industry.
Opening a safe haven of options for yourself in the industry, you can reap the best rewards with the best education.

Step by step procedure for filling course application form!

Medical assistants are the ones who support the physicians and nurses. They have to perform administrative and clinical duties in the offices of the physician’s, chiropractors, podiatrists, and other health practitioners. Employment under this field has been growing drastically from the past few years and this is the reason why more and more students are inclining towards this job profile.

So, if you are also one of them interested in undergoing Medical Assistant Training program then you must find a good training institute. After doing so your next major step is to register yourself.
Mentioned below is the step by step procedure for filling the application form for the registration:

• Personal information: The first and foremost basic thing to be filled in the application form is the personal details of the candidate. This would include name, address, city, zip code, cell phone number, birth date, email address etc.
• Fill educational background details: Once the personal details are filled-in the next step is to fill the educational details. This would cover all the degree, diploma, post-graduation of the candidate, if attained till the point of time one is thinking to go for a training program in the field of medical assistant, technician, pharmacy assistant, biller etc. This is necessary for the institute to know as to teach a fresher one would have to begin from the starting of the session, whereas a person who already has a diploma or degree would have a better knowledge about the program.
• Current employment information: There are candidates who like to undergo training program along with their employment. Thus for them also wide opportunities are being provided by training institutes. Through this way they can enhance their skills and learning ability. In regard to this they need to fill the name of the company they working in, address, years of working, position and telephone number of the company.
• Select the course: Depending on the course one would want to go like Medical Assistant Courses or pharmacy technician field or any other course the candidate need to select the course in, which he or she wants to go. There one would also find the prices of the course and depending on one own choice one can easily select single or double courses.
• Classes’ schedule: After selecting the course one wants to go. Then next step is to select the class schedule. This would comprise of the session timing i.e. whether one would like to have a day, evening or weekend session.

Why certified medical assistants are preferred over non-certified ones?

Nowadays, there are countable numbers of occupations available for the candidates who are pursuing education in medical field. Most of the times people consider bigger profiles like that of doctor or nurse as they have miss-conception about the opportunities being available to them if they would go for bigger job profile as compared to the job profile of assistant. But it’s just an illusion! Smaller job profiles are also equally good and play a significant role in one’s career.
For instance medical assistant career is one such field that it not considered as significant as other job profiles of medical field. But in actuality it is as good as other job profiles. However, difference lies when an individual is differentiated on the bases of certified and non-certified criteria. This is because a candidate who is certified has much more advantages and is preferred over the non-certified ones. Mentioned below are few points that would give you an idea about the same:

• Good knowledge about the duties: The foremost point that explains why certified assistants are preferred over non-certified ones is that they would have good knowledge about the duties, which a non-certified candidate won’t have. This is because of the utmost education and training, which they have gained during their learning period.
• Enough hands-on-training experience: Usually, candidates who are certified they have enough hands-on training experience in regard to their job duties. Likewise goes out with qualified medical aide candidates that would eventually not just make their tasks easy (as they would be familiar with the duties beforehand) but also be quite beneficial for the health care centers (as they won’t have to teach the candidates).
• Less likely to make errors: As qualified aide candidates would have undergone good education and training there would less chances of making errors by them. Consequently, it would be good for the employee, as well as for the patient and health care reputation.

From all the above points you must have got an idea that being a medical assistant is quite beneficial for one’s career. So, if you are looking forward to pursue in this field then right away you must undergo Medical Assistant Training program from a certified institute. This is because a certified institution provides good education as compared to non-certified ones. Usually, the training program comprise of classroom, as well as hands on training session that would make a candidate fit for the job duties.