Medical Assistants: Backbone of Healthcare IndustryThe Medical Assistant profession is experiencing tremendous growth because of the increasing number of senior citizens as well as the insurance industry's greater demand for preventative medical care. The number of jobs for certified medical assistants to aid nurses, doctors, and primary caregivers with various patient, clinical, and administrative tasks is forecasted to grow 30.3% by 2014.
One of the great benefits of training to be a medical assistant is that many of the skills are transferable to other health care occupations. In fact, medical assisting can be one of the best ways for future nurses or doctors to find the healing profession that suits them best, and there are hundreds of healthcare career paths to choose from. Medical assistant graduates can choose to work as "generalists," which provides them the flexibility to step in wherever needed to support the primary care provider. Their skills range from arranging hospital admissions and laboratory tests to explaining medical procedures (such as x-ray or diagnostic sonogram imaging) to patients. Clinical duties of allied health personnel could include recording patients' vital signs, sterilizing medical instruments, assisting the physician during examinations, collecting lab samples, performing on-site lab tests, or disposing of contaminated supplies. Some medical assistants even write and call in prescriptions, but only under direct authorization by the physician. Every clinical health care assistant or technician has a unique career path depending on their individual goals, preferences, and skills. Many start out performing needle injections, administering allergy testing or skin testing, or even drawing blood (phlebotomist) for lab testing. People with administrative skills who want to be involved in the medical field but are less interested in bodily fluids may be more attracted to careers in hospital administration, medical facility bookkeeping, medical insurance billing and coding, or other administrative and clerical healthcare occupations. Doctors rely heavily on medical assistants to handle the basic day-to-day operations of the office or clinic and are always in search of applicants with formal educational training from a certified medical assistant program like those you'll find below. An certificate or degree in medical assistance can be obtained in as little as one year from a community, vocational school or online classes. Trained Medical Assistants can earn upwards of $50,000 per year plus benefits. Those allied health professionals who choose to specialize in specific areas (such as ophthalmology, podiatry, or dentistry) may increase their earnings potential significantly. Medical assisting can be an excellent career choice for people who are interested in helping others but don't want to invest several years in schooling. It can be an exciting and demanding job, and it comes with many rewards. Click here to find out if Medical Assistant is right for you.
