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Do you enjoy meeting and engaging with people from diverse backgrounds? Do you prefer to work hands-on, or do you want to work in an office environment, answering phones, and using your technology skills?
If you like interpersonal communication and are drawn to both administrative and technical tasks, medical assisting may be a great career for you!
What Does A Medical Assistant Do?
Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on UnsplashMedical assistants work in a variety of healthcare settings, such as outpatient clinics, doctors' offices, and hospitals. They may handle clinical or administrative duties, or a combination of both depending on the setting and employer preferences.
Clinical Duties
Taking patients' vital signs, such as blood pressure and temperature
Assisting doctors with examinations and procedures
Setting up the treatment room and equipment for the doctor
Preparing lab samples and giving injections or medications
Taking a medical history
Administrative Duties
Answering telephone calls
Greeting patients when they arrive for appointments
Entering patient information into the electronic health record (EHR)
Entering medical codes for billing and insurance purposes
Quiz
Which of these personality traits will help you most succeed as a medical assistant?
Medical assistants need to be detail-oriented, as taking accurate medical histories, taking and recording vital signs, and updating charts are essential to help the doctor do their job properly. Accurate information also helps insurance companies review treatment and billing. If you don't like working with people and are uninterested in growing your skills, this may not be the field for you.
Preparing For Your Career
Some medical assistants may only need a high school diploma and can learn on the job. However, some states or provinces may prefer or require that medical assistants take a certification test.
Several technical schools or community colleges offer medical assistant training, where you can practice clinical skills in a classroom setting and then gain experience in a medical office before graduating.
Quiz
Which of these skills are you likely to practice in a classroom before gaining work experience in a medical setting?
In settings where medical assistants have clinical duties, they often take patients' vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse, and respirations and can practice these skills in controlled settings before their work experience. While telephone etiquette is also important in the workplace, you may not get explicit instruction on how to answer a call, as each employer's phone script and responses will vary.
Did you know?
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Salary Information
Photo by PiggyBank on Unsplash🇺🇸 In the U.S., medical assistants can earn a median of $17.23 an hour, or $35,850 a year.
🇨🇦 In Canada, the average hourly salary is $19.89 per hour, or $45,622 per year.
Job Prospects
The medical assisting profession has above-average and faster-than-average job growth in both the U.S. and Canada.
You may choose to work in a specialized field of medicine, such as obstetrics and gynecology (OB-GYN) or dermatology.
You can also return to school in the future to train for other medical careers, such as nursing or physician assisting.
Take Action
Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on UnsplashIf you're interested in becoming a medical assistant:
This Byte has been authored by
Alison Myers
Production Editor