The current global healthcare crisis has truly brought home how indispensable our healthcare heroes are, but it’s not just the dedicated doctors and nurses who fall into that category. There’s a whole group of superstars backing up those doctors and nurses and helping keep the wheels on the healthcare bus turning. We’re talking about the medical assistants. Key players on any healthcare team, a medical assistant is often the first person and the last person a patient interacts with during a visit to the doctor or ER. If you’re thinking that makes the medical assistant a pretty important part of the process, you are 100% correct!
What does a Medical Assistant actually do on a daily basis?
The answer to that is – it depends. Because every day is likely to be very different depending on where you work. If you’re a medical assistant in an ER, you’re surely going to have a different routine than if you work in a podiatrist’s office. It might be better to start with the typical duties medical assistants are trained to perform and to note that they are trained to provide both clinical and administrative support to a healthcare team. Generally, most medical assisting programs include training in the following areas:
- Greeting patients
- Scheduling appointments
- Recording patient medical history
- Updating and maintaining electronic medical records
- Processing insurance forms
- Recording patient vital signs
- Phlebotomy
- Administering medication
- Collecting lab specimens
You might be doing one or all of the above tasks on any given day working as a medical assistant. And it’s safe to say, you’ll be interacting with all kinds of people, from all walks of life and that – can make for a very interesting work life!
Are hospitals and doctor’s offices the only places medical assistants can find work?
No way! Of course, you’ll always find medical assistants working in hospitals, ERs, doctor’s offices, clinics and urgent care practices. But you can also look for jobs at schools, colleges, military installations, nursing homes and even government agencies. It’s the versatile nature of medical assisting that makes it a career path with a high demand for qualified personnel. So high in fact, that the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that medical assisting careers will grow at a much faster than average rate of 23%, adding a whopping 154,900 jobs by 2028!*
Plenty of places you can work, an industry on the rise with tons of growth, and our medical assisting programs can be completed in as little as 9 months. Yep! There’s a lot to love about a career in medical assisting. But the best part by far? That feeling you’ll get from making a living by helping people feel better. By making their experience a little bit better by just being you! If you’d like to learn more about a career in medical assisting, check out the Medical Assistant Administrative & Clinical Program at Summit College. With a dedicated faculty, flexible scheduling options and free tutoring, Summit College is helping students get the hands-on training and skills they need to join the amazing healthcare heroes out there making a difference every day. Contact us today for more information.
