How to become a Medical Administrative Assistant

Are you a caring individual capable of lending a kind ear to other people’s problems? Have you won accolades for your organization and multi-tasking skills? Is attention to detail one of the strongest points of your personality? Can you see a task to its logical end without losing patience and without hitting the panic button? Are you an effective implementer and a good team player?

If you answered most of the above questions in the affirmative, then medical administrative assistance may be an appropriate profession for you.

You may wonder why, if at all, you should consider a career in medical administrative assistants. Well, we can give you several reasons why.

First, it has been ranked by the Department of Labor as one of the fastest growing professions in the 2008-18 decade. At a time when unemployment rates are soaring and pink slips have become more common than we’d like them to be, a profession that promises excellent job prospects is asking to be noticed and that’s medical assistance!

And if you thought that you will need to burn gallons of midnight oil before you can step into a field that’s even remotely connected to medicine, think again. It’s possible to start your medical assistance career in a matter of months. Yes, you heard that right, a few months is all it takes to complete post-secondary medical administrative assistant training and be on your way to this rewarding career!

Intrigued? Want to learn more about how to become a medical administrative assistant? Here’s a complete list of things to do:

1. Gather information: Getting into a profession that’s not right for you can be a mentally and physically exhausting experience. If you don’t want to make that mistake, start by learning as much as you can about medical administrative assistance. Find out what medical assistants do, how much they make, what their career graph looks like, etc. You can do your research online, interview professionals in the field, or shadow medical assistants at work to get your questions answered.
2. Volunteer at a healthcare center: Nothing will prepare you more for a career than getting your hands dirty with some experience even if it has nothing to do with medical assistance directly. Volunteering at a local hospital or any other healthcare unit will provide you valuable insights into how the healthcare system works. Since that’s the environment you will be working in, the experience will come in handy when you start your career.
3. Get trained: As far as getting trained is concerned, you have two options. You can head to a medical administrative assistant school that offers vocational training programs in the field or you can enroll for an Associate’s degree at a junior or four-year college or university. Needless to say, vocational training courses are much more affordable and shorter in duration as compared to a college degree. So, choose a program to suit your budget and time requirements.
4. Become a certified professional: Once you have completed your medical administrative assistant training, get certified by organizations like the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA) if you want to enjoy better employment opportunities and take home bigger paychecks.
5. Go out into the field: Once all the credentials have adorned your resume, it’s time to get out into the field and test the waters. Start by personally approaching healthcare centers where you live because the traditional method of finding jobs through word of mouth still works. If not, then uploading your resume on job search sites should certainly yield positive results. Very soon, you will find yourself among the thousands of professionals expected to join this occupation over the next few years.