If you want to work as medical assistant, you need to know what your duties will be, what you will do specifically, what your obligations are and of course you will also be interested in knowing what your approximate salary will be, because all this information you are about to know below, so keep reading …
What is the medical assistant and what are its functions
If you want to work as medical assistant, you will have to take care of routine clinical tasks within the administration of a doctor’s office or health professionals.
Your tasks may vary according to the office you occupy, since it all depends on the specialty of the doctor and his practice, but the most common is that:
Physician Assistant Features
When dealing with tasks within the administration of the doctors’ office, the functions that correspond to you as a medical assistant are:
- Answer phone calls.
- Receive patients who come to the medical visit.
- Carry out updating of patient records.
- Keep the patient registry file updated.
- Complete the patient health insurance form.
- Receive and take charge of handling the doctor’s correspondence.
- Take charge of scheduling patient appointments.
- Take charge of admitting patients to the hospital.
- Take charge of the laboratory services corresponding to each patient.
- In charge of managing the billing and accounting of the doctor.
- Take the medical history of patients.
- Record the vital signs of the patients.
- Thus give the patients the explanation about the medical treatment procedure.
- Preparation of patients to carry out exams ordered by the doctor.
- Be of assistance to the physician when performing the examination of the patient.
- Collect and prepare laboratory samples or perform laboratory tests within the establishment.
- Eliminate contaminated substances.
- In charge of the sterilization of medical instruments.
- Arrange and maintain medical equipment and supplies.
Medical assistant working conditions
- What medical assistant you will work in an environment with excellent lighting and cleanliness.
- You will maintain a constant interaction with patients.
- If you work full time it will be 40 hours a week.
- If you work part-time, you will be able to fulfill your duties only on weekends or at night.
What It Takes To Be A Medical Assistant
- Generally, you will need to have graduated from high school or have an equivalent diploma.
- The best thing is that you have graduated from a formal medical assistance program, as it is the professional title most appreciated by employers.
- You can earn a degree by graduating from a formal health assistance program at a trade school, a vocational tech high school, or a community college.
- Although you will not obtain a license, depending on the state where you work, you will need to take a course or a test prior to performing tasks such as X-rays.
- You can acquire formal training despite the fact that most medical assistants were trained in the same job, but currently it is not the most common.
- You can also qualify for a health care teaching position and if you get additional education you can enter health care occupations such as medical technology or nursing.
Medical assistant salary
Regarding the salary of the medical assistant It will depend on several factors such as your experience and the number of hours you work, whether you charge a monthly salary or an hourly salary.
- In this sense, if you charge per hour, your average salary will be $ 14.17.
- Since you will gain experience, over time and when you reach 20 years of age in the same job, you will be able to do other jobs.
- If you are in the entry level and you do not reach 5 years working, your average annual salary will be $ 28,000 including overtime pay, bonuses and tips.
- If you have between 5 and 10 years of experience, your average annual salary will be $ 31,000.
- If you have 10 to 20 years of experience, your average annual salary will be $ 33,000.
- If your experience exceeds 20 years, you can get an average annual salary of $ 35,000.
- If you do not have CMA certification and you work full time, your average annual salary will be $ 27,914 while if you work hourly the average pay is $ 14.29.
- If you are CMA certified and also work full time, your average annual salary can be $ 29,889 and if you work hourly your pay can be $ 15.35.
- If you have entry-level experience and up to 2 years of experience, working full time with CMA certification, your average annual salary will be $ 25,848 and if you work hourly your pay will be $ 13.44.
- With the same experience but if you do not have CMA certification, your salary for full-time work on average will be $ 25,658 and if you receive an hourly payment on average it will be $ 13.25.
- If you have 3-5 years of experience and work full time with CMA certification, you will receive an average annual salary of $ 25,158 and if you receive an hourly payment it will be $ 14.83.
- With the same previous experience but if you do not have CMA certification but work full time, your average annual salary will be $ 26,340 while if you receive an hourly payment, it will be $ 14.30.
- If you have 6 to 9 years of experience and are CMA certified, working full time your average annual salary can be $ 30,756 and if you are paid per hour it will be $ 15.67.
- With the same experience but if you do not have CMA certification and work full time, your average annual salary will be $ 29,821 and if you receive an hourly payment it will be $ 15.69.
- If you have 10-15 years of experience, work full time with CMA certification, your average annual salary will be $ 32,954 and if you are paid per hour it will be $ 16.96.
- With the same experience but if you do not have CMA certification, your full-time job will have an average annual salary of $ 3,530 and if you receive an hourly payment it will be $ 17.72.
- If you have more than 16 years of experience, work full time with CMA certification, your average annual salary will be $ 36038 and if you receive an hourly payment it will be $ 18.16.
- With the same experience in years, your full-time job without CMA certification, you will receive an average annual salary of $ 37,528 and if you receive an hourly payment it will be $ 18.28.
Medical Assistant in the United States
In the United States, medical assistants have a different annual salary according to geographic region, for example:
- In the Pacific region, with CMA certification the salary averages at $ 33,322 per year and $ 17.60 per hour.
- In the west north central region, the hourly wage averages at $ 16.15.
- In New England, the average annual salary is $ 30,997.
It even varies according to the work environment, that is, if you work in an outpatient environment, in the emergency department of a hospital, in a doctor’s office or in a primary care center.
Medical assistant course in Spanish
If you want to take a medical assistant course in Spanish, you can go, for example, to:
Sanfordbrown.edu
- You will obtain your degree from a program in bilingual Spanish.
- You will complete a supervised clinical internship at a medical facility including records, assessments, and competencies.
- When you finish the program you will have obtained the skills and knowledge to find an entry-level job.