Where Can You Work as a Medical Assistant?
If you’re researching a career medical assisting you might be wondering what work setting you can expect to find yourself in. Medical assistants are an essential part of most doctor’s offices. They are responsible for performing diagnostic procedures and laboratory tests, taking vital signals, administering medications, including helping with patient exams. But where could you perform these duties?
The truth is that there are a variety of places where you could work as a medical assistant. Let’s take a look at what the job entails and where you could end up working.
Career Outlook
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), medical assistants held approximately 591,300 jobs. Most of which were in physicians’ offices, outpatient clinics, and hospitals, and other healthcare facilities.
In the years between 2014 and 2024, medical assistants are projected to grow around 23%, the BLS tells us. The growth is led by the ever growing number of aging baby boomers who have increased demand for preventive medical services often offered by physicians. As physicians get more patients, they will hire more medical assistants to support their practice.
How to Become a Medical Assistant
By enrolling in at an accredited college or university, students get prepared with technical skills, knowledge, and computer proficiency needed for employment in numerous healthcare positions. Your degree program should prepare you for working in a variety of settings and with lots of different patients of varying needs and abilities.
Some of the most common tasks taught in medical assisting schools are:
- Get patients ready for an examination
- Check vital signs
- Conduct patient interviews and taking medical histories
- Help during surgical procedure
- Collect specimens
- Evaluate and process payments
- Prepare billing statements
- Perform EKGs and Laboratory tests
Your course work could include:
- Pharmacology
- Anatomy
- Physiology
- Computer Application
- Clinical Procedures
Possible Career Path
After completing studies, graduates with medical assisting degrees, students could pursue the following careers:
- Medical assistants in clinics or physician offices
- Phlebotomists
- EKG technicians
- Related Healthcare jobs
Medical Assistants who are experienced can function in managerial or supervisory capacities such as selecting, hiring, and evaluating personnel. You are free to take any professional certification exams.
Where do Medical Assistants Work?
Let’s look at some of the places you can work in as a medical assistant in finer details:
Primary Care Facilities
Common places you can work as a medical assistant are at hospitals or private practices. Medical assistants get hired in primary care facilities to offer support to nurses and doctors in completing routine clinical and administrative tasks.
Wherever there is a doctor, a medical assistant is needed in most cases, and since doctors are found all over the world, medical assisting jobs are also available through the world. This also means that just like nurses, you have more flexibility and mobility in the places you can work and live because demand is everywhere.
Medical Labs
To work in a Medical Lab as a medical assistant, your tasks, in most cases, will be to collect and process lab specimens. Most healthcare clinics need this basic skill for managing blood samples, including other lab tests. Research universities also require medical assistants to offer help to their scientists and faculties in lab work.
Retirement Communities
You can also expect to get medical assistant jobs in various nursing homes. These should be the facilities that resemble hospitals in the services they offer. Although it’s less expected, retirement communities also need medical assistants.
Retirement communities require more medical assistants than doctors since the residents are in good health, and most of them have their primary care doctors. However, small incidents can happen, and this is where medical assistants come in handy to help with injections or nursing care on site.
Are you interested in a career in medical assisting? If you’d like to learn more about earning an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Health Science with a concentration in Medical Assisting, consider ECPI University for the education you need to get your start in this field. For more information, connect with a friendly admissions advisor today.
It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!
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Gainful Employment Information – Medical Assisting – Associate’s
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