Jobs and Earnings of Medical Assistants

By Darrell Legra


Medical assistants are the helpers to doctors who also perform executive as well as clinical jobs in diverse healthcare settings. They work in doctors' offices, surgeries, and medical clinics, helping to keep operations running efficiently and smoothly. The job of medical assistant relies upon the type of healthcare facility they're working. Some aides do patient and laboratory work exclusively. Others are responsible for medical records, book-keeping, and answering the phone. In most small offices, medical assistants may handle all these tasks.

Medical Assistant Job Description

The coverage of the medical assistant jobs is very in depth. Thus, the medical assistants are divided according to the job that they perform. They're commonly grouped as medical office helper, clinical medical assistants, executive medical assistants, and specialised medical assistants. The clinical medical assistant's job description varies from one state to another. Their role is to perform jobs that are medical-related.

They can prepare the patient ahead of the exam, take down notes on a patient's medical history, aid the physician in the examination, call in prescriptions to the pharmacy, and sterilize the medical instruments. They can also perform jobs like explaining medical problems and issues to the patient, collecting laboratory specimen, drawing blood, taking electrocardiograms, and removing sutures.

The medical executive assistant, alternatively, handles the submission of medical claim forms, scheduling health tests, updating the files of the patients, organizing admissions on the hospital, bookkeeping and billing of the medical facilities and practice. Eventually, the specialized medical assistants work in their special field. For instance, the medical lab aides are required to do lab-related jobs like testing and documenting of tests. The optometric helper works with an optometrist and performs jobs that are related to the eye.

Earnings and Benefits

The earning of Medical Assistants is dependent on training, experience, size of practice, and geographic location. The Medical Assistants with Associate's degree usually earn more than those who have little or no training. The mean revenue for medical assistants was $24,610 per year in 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most health care facilities will also offer their staff a variety of benefits to encourage employees to remain with the company. Some of these benefits might include Medical/Dental/Vision Plan, Vacation & Sick Pay, Retirement Plan, College Teaching Aid/Repayment and many more.




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