What Does a Medical Assistant Do?

Medical assistants are an integral part of running and maintaining a medical practice. While they may not serve to directly assist patients, they provide vital helping hands to doctors and other medical staff. Before considering medical assistant school, here is quick rundown on the ins and outs of a medical assistant position.
Unlike a physician assistant, who is able to help treat and diagnose patients, a medical assistant helps to maintain the doctor's office with clerical, secretarial and administrative duties. Basically any doctor with their own office may have a need for medical assistance; therefore a medical assistant can work for virtually any type of doctor. With the high demand for medical assistants, enrolling in medical assistant school could be a wise investment into your future.
Programs to Consider:
Duties of a medical assistant include filing patient paperwork and medical records, medical billing, scheduling appointments and processing insurance forms. However, the duties of a medical assistant can depend on the size of office he or she works in. When working for a larger medical practice, medical assistant duties tend to be more specialized while medical assistants in smaller offices can have a broader scope of responsibilities.
Medical assistant school will prepare and train you mainly for office management duties. However, it will also cover other duties a medical assistant may be expected to carry out including dressing wounds, giving out medication and readying patients for X-rays. If you prefer more hands-on duties such as these, you can chose a particular focus for medical assisting that will allow you to work more closely with patients. For example, medical assistants for podiatrists actually get to help doctors during surgery.
Explore the possibilities for a career in health care by looking into medical assistant school and find out what would be the perfect medical assisting job for you.
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