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.