Medical Assistant Perform administrative and certain clinical duties under the direction of a physician. Administrative duties may include scheduling appointments, maintaining medical records, billing, and coding information for insurance purposes. Clinical duties may include taking and recording vital signs and medical histories, preparing patients for examination, drawing blood, and administering medications as directed by physician.
Medical Assistant is Also Know as
In different settings, Medical Assistant is titled as
- Certified Medical Assistant (CMA)
- Chiropractor Assistant
- Clinical Medical Assistant
- Doctor's Assistant
- Health Assistant
- Ophthalmic Assistant
- Ophthalmological Assistant
- Optometric Assistant
- Outpatient Surgery Assistant
- Registered Medical Assistant (RMA)
Education and Training of Medical Assistant
Medical Assistant is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Medical Assistant
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Medical Assistant
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Medical Assistant
- Bachelor in Medical/Health Management and Clinical Assistant/S
- Associate Degree Courses in Medical/Health Management and Clinical Assistant/S
- Masters Degree Courses in Medical/Health Management and Clinical Assistant/S
- Bachelor in Medical/Clinical Assistant
- Associate Degree Courses in Medical/Clinical Assistant
- Masters Degree Courses in Medical/Clinical Assistant
- Bachelor in Anesthesiologist Assistant
- Associate Degree Courses in Anesthesiologist Assistant
- Masters Degree Courses in Anesthesiologist Assistant
- Bachelor in Chiropractic Technician/Assistant
- Associate Degree Courses in Chiropractic Technician/Assistant
- Masters Degree Courses in Chiropractic Technician/Assistant
Training Required for Medical Assistant
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Medical Assistant in different industries are
- Ophthalmic Medical Technicians
- Licensed Practical and Licensed Vocational Nurses
- Surgical Assistants
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Cardiovascular Technologists and Technicians
- Registered Nurses
- Medical Records Specialists
- Ophthalmic Medical Technologists
- Dental Assistants
- Nursing Assistants
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Pediatric Surgeons
- Orthopedic Surgeons, Except Pediatric
- Cardiologists
- Physician Assistants
- Family Medicine Physicians
- General Internal Medicine Physicians
- Nurse Practitioners
- Dermatologists
- Physical Therapist Assistants
What Do Medical Assistant do?
- Interview patients to obtain medical information and measure their vital signs, weight, and height.
- Show patients to examination rooms and prepare them for the physician.
- Record patients' medical history, vital statistics, or information such as test results in medical records.
- Prepare and administer medications as directed by a physician.
- Collect blood, tissue, or other laboratory specimens, log the specimens, and prepare them for testing.
- Explain treatment procedures, medications, diets, or physicians' instructions to patients.
- Help physicians examine and treat patients, handing them instruments or materials or performing such tasks as giving injections or removing sutures.
- Authorize drug refills and provide prescription information to pharmacies.
- Prepare treatment rooms for patient examinations, keeping the rooms neat and clean.
- Clean and sterilize instruments and dispose of contaminated supplies.
- Schedule appointments for patients.
- Change dressings on wounds.
- Greet and log in patients arriving at office or clinic.
- Contact medical facilities or departments to schedule patients for tests or admission.
- Perform general office duties, such as answering telephones, taking dictation, or completing insurance forms.
- Inventory and order medical, lab, or office supplies or equipment.
- Perform routine laboratory tests and sample analyses.
- Set up medical laboratory equipment.
- Keep financial records or perform other bookkeeping duties, such as handling credit or collections or mailing monthly statements to patients.
- Operate x-ray, electrocardiogram (EKG), or other equipment to administer routine diagnostic tests.
Qualities of Good Medical Assistant
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Medical Assistant
- Audiometers
- Autoclaves
- Baumanometers
- Binocular light compound microscopes
- Blood chemistry analyzers
- Blood collection vials
- Breathalyzers
- Butterfly needles
- Canes
- Cast cutters
- Centrifuges
- Credit card readers
- Crutches
- Culturettes
- Dictation equipment
- Dosimetry badges
- Electrocardiography EKG units
- Electrocautery equipment
- Electronic blood pressure measuring devices
- Endotracheal ET tubes
- Enema equipment
- Evacuated blood collection tubes
- Evacuated collection tube holders/adapters
- Flexible sigmoidoscopy equipment
- Gait belts
- Handheld occluders
- Hearing aids
- Intradermal needles
- Intramuscular needles
- Keratometers
- Lancets
- Laser printers
- Lensometers
- Manual blood pressuring measurement equipment
- Mayo stands
- Mechanical stethoscopes
- Metric rules
- Microcapillary hematocrit tubes
- Microscope slides
- Nebulizers
- Notebook computers
- Opthalmoscopes
- Otoscopes
- Oxygen equipment
- Oxygen masks
- Oxygen tanks
- Personal computers
- Pipettes
- Plethysmographs
- Pulmonary function measurement equipment
- Pulmonary nebulizers
- Retinoscopes
- Scanners
- Single draw needles
- Snellen eye charts
- Spirometers
- Splints
- Staple removers
- Subcutaneous hypodermic needles
- Suction machines
- Suction tubing
- Suture removers
- Syringe needles
- Syringes
- Tablet computers
- Tonometers
- Tourniquets
- Transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation TENS units
- Tuberculin TB skin test equipment
- Vitalors
- Walkers
- Wheelchairs
- X ray development equipment
- X ray machines
Technology Skills required for Medical Assistant
- Appointment scheduling software
- Billing software
- Bookkeeping software
- Business software applications
- Data entry software
- Database software
- Diagnostic and procedural coding software
- eClinicalWorks EHR software
- Electronic medical record EMR software
- Email software
- Epic Systems
- GE Healthcare Centricity EMR
- Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCS
- IDX Systems Patient Chart Tracking
- Intuit QuickBooks
- Medical condition coding software
- Medical procedure coding software
- MEDITECH software
- Microsoft Access
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Exchange
- Microsoft Office SharePoint Server MOSS
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Microsoft SharePoint
- Microsoft Windows Vista Business
- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- Microsoft Word
- Patient management software
- Spreadsheet software
- Visual electro diagnostic software
- Web browser software
- Word processing software