What Does a Medical Assistant Do?

With the shortage of nursing resources and increased demand of medical assisting personnel because of the significant amount of services required from all types of medical centers such as hospitals, dental clinics, health care centers, private clinics, surgeon specialist centre, pediatric specialist centre and others, the medical assistant role has become vital in the medical industry today. They are acting as the secretary in the doctor offices and any medical centers who are responsible and managing all the basic administrative and clerical work in order to sustain the smooth operation of the office, clinics, hospitals from any operative interruption. The title of these medical personnel may sound small but their functions are significantly important and necessary. No wonder it has been cited that medical assistant is the world third growing career today with attractive remuneration and salary.

What are the roles and responsibilities for medical assistants? Let's separate out the two main work scopes of this profession, which are the front desk and the back office and share some of the details job functions of theirs.

A) Front desk
- Those responsible at the front desk are responsible for more of a secretarial work such as answering calls, filing up insurance form, arranging appointments for their patients, reserving surgery rooms for the surgeons, receive faxes and typing letters, electronic data entry of patients' bio-data with their medical records, consultancy records etc.

- They are the first gate of engagement with the patients, who are normally the one who greets the patients in the medical centre.

- They are also the main contacts liaising with the Insurance companies for claims and consultancy in insurance matters.

- They will have to take care of the replenishment activities for all the required stock and equipments used in the medical centers, offices or hospitals, right from medication supplies, gloves, bottles, needles, stationeries and many more.

- They are the one who will prepare for the prescriptions after the patients are diagnosis by the doctor. He/she will brief the patients on the frequencies to consume for each of the prescription and the related remedy of each are potentially for.

B) Back office
- At the Back Office, more technical tasks are expected here. Your medical knowledge on medical and health care and exposure in any previous jobs related to this field will definitely help to facilitate your role here.

- Medical assistant is the one who will guide the patients to the check-up room to conduct all the basic routine examinations on the patients, and jot down all the vital signs for the patients' weight and height, age, blood pressure, temperature level, possibilities of allergic, medical history, any inherited illness or diseases, the patient's current medical issues or health conditions.

- They will be the one responsible to give injections, remove stitches and perform X-ray screening, and also help to draw blood for patients whose blood sample need to be sent for lab testing. In some cases, the doctor will perform the injections or drawing blood, but the medical assistant will need to stay in the room together with the doctor and patients to assist with any procedures and also to record down all the necessary details during the activity.

- A medical assistant will also help to clarify the doctor's instructions to the patients to ensure that the patients really understand what is expected from him or what are the diagnoses returned by the doctor. Accurate information are to be communicated to the patients accordingly especially in the medical field.


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