Top Skills Needed To Be An Effective Medical Assistant

By Daryl B. Chapman

Nowadays many are enticed to get into the medical assisting career. This is because the medical industry is rapidly expanding and growing that it needs a lot of healthcare assistants to sustain people’s medical needs. Another reason why people pursue this kind of career is because the program course is very easy and convenient. It only takes six months to one year to finish the entire course. Furthermore, students can conveniently enroll online. People use this kind of healthcare career as a stepping stone if they want to pursue medical career or administrative career. A lot of them enroll in this kind of career to finance their education in medicine or other administrative courses.

Contrary to how easy and comfortable finishing its trainings and program courses, the duties and responsibilities of being a medical assistant (MA) is a daunting task. There are skills that one must master in order to be well equipped in this line of work. They cover a wide scope of work from administrative tasks to clinical tasks. These are:

– Filing paperwork, lab slips, insurance forms and billing statements.
– Retrieving and reviewing patient’s medications and medical history, complaints if any and interrogation of patient’s complaints.
– Stocking and purchasing of office and medical supplies.
– Coding medical and office supplies and procedures.
– Answering telephone calls, arranging doctor’s schedules.
– Greeting and interviewing patients.
– Participating in training of aspiring assistants
– Helping doctors examine and treat patients.
– Drawing of blood
– Checking of height, weight, temperature and blood pressure of the patients
– Preparing and administering medications, instructing patients in taking medications
– Changing the patients dressings
– Removing sutures
– Acting as the doctor’s liaison
– Keeping the patients feel at home and comfortable in the hospital

The above mentioned tasks are only a few from the massive duties and responsibilities of medical assistants. To be able to fulfill these tasks, an aspiring assistants must possess these following skills:

Administrative skills – Medical assistants will do a lot of administrative tasks and one should possess skills on this area. Medical assistant should have skills on keeping the files organized and intact. Moreover, it is advisable to have skills on bookkeeping as well because handling finance records are included in their tasks.

Clinical skills – This is one major skill that a MA should posses. Clinical skills are gained through hands-on training and practical experience. During program courses, a lot of lessons are taught such as anatomy, physiology, medical ethics and terminology but these are just theories and should be put into practice before a student will be able to gain skills on these areas. For instance, giving patients medicines through injections, theory is not enough to be able to master it. Medical assistants should experience performing injections to patients with direct supervision of a licensed health care provider.

Good communication skills – Medical assistants are also responsible for keeping the patients feel at home and comfortable, they should possess good communication skills. They are the ones who answer phone calls and sometimes explain the procedures that are being done to the patients. With that said, they should know how to communicate not only to patients but to the other medical staffs in the hospital as well. They should have the ability to converse clearly, concisely, precisely and calmly most especially in emergency situations.

Indeed medical assisting is very in demand these days. It is very easy to finish trainings and program courses and very effortless to find a job. They have so many duties and responsibilities and without the right skills, one will not be able to fulfill these enormous and daunting tasks.

Learn more about Medical Assisting now!