You could either receive a certificate or an Associates. Associate just takes more training and or school time then the other. A certificate in Medical Assisting takes about 9 to 12 months long, while an Associate’s degree takes about 24 months long. When choosing the program its best to weigh out your options. For example the Medical assisting certificate program generally takes about one year in length or less. Medical Assistant salaries vary, depending on your location, your specialization, and as well as experience. For an example in California ones annual income could be about 32,790 but in another state like Florida a medical assistant would make about 29,400. As well as your knowledge. This education type focuses on the specific knowledge and skills you’ll need to work as a medical assistant. It gets straight to the point, these programs are often very fast-paced and intense. You can expect to spend dedicated hours studying and completing externships. Benefits to this could be finishing school faster, not having to take courses that has nothing to do with your program, and more than likely less expensive than the Associates. The plus to getting an associates in the medical assisting is because it’s more in-depth than a certificate program. In the Associates program you are required to take core classes as well as the clinical and administrative classes. It also a plus if you decide to then …show more content…
The duty of the medical assistant all depends on the unit in which they work. As a medical assistant within a hospital, one becomes a receptionist, scheduler, and the person who handles billing, and often helps patients with filling out important forms. On the clinical side of things, job responsibilities are both patient-based and laboratory-based. They direct patient needs such as administering required medication or immunizations, which are a very important role of the job. They must be very well trained in a laboratory setting, due to the fact that they spend a fair amount of time working in the lab, examining blood, urine, and stool samples taken from patients. So if any results may come back abnormal, they are well aware that they must contact physicians immediately. As a clinical medical assistant and hospital medical assistants are fairly similar, but there are important differences. In a clinic, instead of focusing on a particular unit or area of a hospital, their work would be more comprehensive, filling any of the gaps needed to help physicians carry out patient procedures. In small clinics, medical assistants are referred to as “generalists” because their job is to do everything from greeting patients and answering telephones, to changing wound dressings and removing sutures. They also inform patients about general care,