Curious about what Medical Assisting is? Admirably, medical assisting is one of the fastest growing careers these days. Statistics show that this job is estimated to rise for the next ten years due to the innovation of medical equipment and the increase number of population around the world.
If you wish to become a medical assistant, you don’t need a master’s degree. All you need is your high school diploma or a GED equivalent. Aspiring medical assistants must simply undergo programs which will only take six months to two years to complete.
The course for medical assisting includes the fundamental medical vocabulary, anatomy and physiology and supplementary administrative training like recordkeeping, bookkeeping, transcription, and so on and so forth.
Program courses are exclusively intended to give them a broad perspective in medical field to help them perform their errand productively and fruitfully. This is because medical assistants’ nature of work is to perform or to keep medical establishments organized and to keep it running smoothly. Also, since medical assistants are closely working with patients and with other medical staff like doctors and nurses, their program courses also include patient relations, ethics and medical laws and principles.
Although, some of the roles of medical assistants are identical a doctor assistant or a nurse, they are very different. Medical assistants carry out clerical and clinical tasks while nurses are more on treatments and patient management.
In the main a medical assistant handles administrative duties and or clinical duties.
1. Administrative Duties and Responsibilities
- Answering telephone calls
- Assist patients and families
- Appointment planning
- Fiscal recording and billing
- Bookkeeping
- Handling correspondence
- Filing and updating patient’s medical records
- Managing insurance forms
- Arranging hospital admissions
- Assisting in laboratory services
2. Clinical Duties and Responsibilities
- Taking patient’s health history
- Recording patient’s vital signs
- Preparing patients for medical examinations
- Assisting doctors during health examinations
- Explaining to patients the procedures that are to be done to them
- Collects and prepares the laboratory specimens
- Buying medical materials and equipments
- Disposing of infected medical materials
- Preparing medical instruments
- Making sure that hospital quarters such as waiting rooms and examination rooms are clean and tidy
In some hospitals medical assistants are allowed, under the custody of doctors to carry out basic medical tasks such as:
- Basic laboratory tests
- Prepare medications and administer medications too
- Instructing patients in taking medications and some diets
- Drug refills
- Draw blood
- Changing of dressings
- Removing sutures
Since medical assistants have a large scope of tasks, they should at all times stay focused and systematic. They must possess pleasing personality and must be good communicators for they must make the patients feel comfortable and easy before and or during examination. Also, medical assistants must be dainty and well groomed for they should look presentable when dealing with patients.
Duties and tasks of medical assistants vary depending in the hospitals they work. In small hospitals or clinics they are to perform both administrative and clinical duties while in large hospitals where there are other medical staff, medical assistants are encouraged to performed specific tasks under the direction of the department administrators.
Regardless where medical assistants work, they are very useful in helping healthcare workers to perform their jobs more effectively and efficiently. As a consequence, the growing needs of people’s medical attention are met through them.
It is very important for health care facilities and practices to keep meticulous medical records so doctors have access to correct and current information and patients receive the best health care. Medical information, filed in cabinets in the past, can now be correctly managed with medical billing software. Easy to use, medical billing software follows the same steps as manual accounting, but simplifies labor and is far more accurate, timely and effective. Information can be accessed instantly, and overhead costs and paperwork significantly lessened.
Deductibles and co pays are vital to the financial health of your office. Medical billing software can help you keep on top of your financial data, and can simplify daily office tasks such as billing, accounting and maintaining records. Work on several things at once and with multiple computers, easily access patient procedure and bill information throughout the facility. You can view or track each patient’s deductibles from either a ledger screen or patient screen. You can access insurance information instantly to address patient questions as they are asked; and you won’t have to wait to contact the insurance company. Office staff can ensure each patient is charged correctly and pays the right amount for each procedure. Most medical billing software, allows you to submit your claims electronically. This saves time, reduces mistakes and helps you get paid quicker.
With medical billing software, more expense does not always mean you are getting a better product. Look for software that is easy to use and offers state of the art features at a very low cost. It is important to choose the right system for your practice. Some practices might need medical billing software to help them manage their entire workflow and other need just require a few features. Learn what needs you have as a practice and what software features would compliment the already successful systems you have in place. You don’t want software that is hard for your staff to learn or that you have to adjust to; you should pick software that adjusts to your specific needs. Once you have the right medical billing software in place, you can focus on building and improving your business instead of just maintaining it.
Whether a medical office, mental health office, physical therapy clinic, chiropractor, or any other health care industry, medical billing software has what you need to keep your edge over the competition. Significantly reduce costs, increase revenue, and improve your bottom line.
Medical records and health information technicians handle and organize patient records, and evaluate these records for completeness and accuracy.
They may specialize in coding patients’ medical information for insurance purposes. They will tabulate and analyze data to improve patient care, control costs, provide documentation for use in legal actions and respond to surveys for use in research studies. They conduct annual follow-ups on all patients to track their treatment, survival, and recovery. They may supervise health information clerks and transcriptionists.
In 2004 there were about 159,000 technicians in the U.S. About 40% worked in hospitals. The rest were mostly in physician’s offices, nursing care facilities, outpatient care centers, and home health care services. Some worked in insurance firms that deal in health matters. In public health departments technicians supervise data collection.
Medical records and health information technicians usually have an associate degree from a community or junior college. Besides a general education, coursework should include medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, legal aspects of health information, coding and abstraction of data, statistics, database management, quality improvement methods and computer science.
Many job openings require Registered Health Information Technicians (RHIT). They pass a written exam from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). To take the exam, one must graduate from a 2-year associate degree program. This should be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education (CAHIIM). In 2005, there were 184 CAHIIM-accredited programs.
Medical records and health information technicians must be able to:
• organize and evaluate patient records for completeness and accuracy, using modern record keeping procedures and computer programs,
• make sure that patients’ initial medical charts are complete,
• communicate clearly with physicians and other health care professionals,
• manage a department, if they have the training and experience,
• work a 40-hour week with some overtime,
• be prepared to work day, evening, and night shifts if working in hospitals,
• pay close attention to detail.
Job Growth for Medical Records and Health Information Technicians:
Job opportunities for medical records and health information technicians will grow much faster than average for all occupations. Most new jobs are expected to be in physician’s offices because of increasing demand for detailed records. Rapid growth also is expected in home health care services, outpatient care centers, and nursing and residential care facilities.
How much do medical records and health information technicians earn?
In 2004 median annual earnings were $25,590. Fifty percent earned between $20,650 and $32,990. The lowest salaries were less than $17,720, and the highest more than $41,760.
A Day in a Medical Records Technician’s Life:
On a typical day a medical records technician will:
•organize and evaluate patient records for completeness and accuracy,
•make sure that patients’ initial medical charts are complete and entered in the computer,
•communicate with physicians to clarify diagnoses or to obtain additional information,
•assign a code to each diagnosis and procedure,
•consult classification manuals concerning disease processes,
•use computer software to assign the patient to one of several hundred “diagnosis-related groups,” or DRGs,
•tabulate and analyze data,
•review patient records and pathology reports,
•conduct annual follow-ups on all patients in the registry.
I hope this article gives you a good idea of what is involved in the career of a Medical Records Technician. Health care is the largest industry in the world. In the U.S. about 14 million people work in the health care field. More new wage and salary jobs are in health care than in any other industry.
