Three Skills You Need to Become a Medical Assistant

Hollywood Institute

Medical assistants play an important role and have a unique skill set, where they work alongside doctors, helping patients, performing minor procedures, and administrative tasks. A medical assistant usually works in a doctor’s office or clinic, where outpatient care is needed, in emergency room areas, or with patients in a hospital setting. A medical assistant is not licensed like a nurse but must complete a training program to get a medical assistant certification.

Medical Skills

By attending a medical assistant school like Hollywood Institute in Margate Fl, some of the medical skills you will learn are giving injections, apply dressings, drawing blood, and remove sutures. Following infection control and safety guidelines, quality control standards when sterilizing and setting out instruments, maintaining medical equipment, and preparing exam rooms for patients are just a few of the jobs you will be doing. In addition, you may be in charge, of re-ordering supplies as needed, arranging hospital admissions, working with laboratory services, and updating patient records and medical histories. You might also need to handle insurance forms for billing, reconciling co-pays, resolving insurance billing problems, and helping patients with their insurance companies.

Patient Interaction

A medical assistant needs to have soft hands or people skills. You need to be able to communicate to people with care or empathy. You will need a good bedside manner when explaining medical instructions and information to patients in a non-technical way. You must be calm with difficult patients, and supportive with patients who are distressed. It’s great if you can speak a second language, especially if you live or work in a bi-lingual community. Confidentiality is very important when you work with patients. You must be able to articulate directions clearly, and precisely to patients.

Personal Quality

You must be detail oriented, accurate when taking information from patients, or relaying messages to or from a doctor. Being organized, able to prioritize problems, and working together with other staff members is essential. Sometimes jobs overlap, and you will be answering the phone, and setting up appointments. Your tone and demeanor while answering the phone should be personal, understanding and empathetic when it’s fitting. You need to be able to think on your feet, be accurate, adept, creative, resourceful, punctual, and a self-starter. An employer appreciates a worker who can problem-solve, keeping their emotions under control. You need to be dependable, flexible, competent, teachable, honest, responsible, and loyal. A medical assistant should be professional in manner, sincere, sociable, and have a good sense of humor.

Essential Skills

Each skill listed above encompass a wide range of traits and responsibilities. They are intertwined and most of the time inseparable and describe a person who genuinely cares about others. If you embody most of these characteristics, enroll today in the the medical assistant program offered at Hollywood Institute of Beauty Careers browse our website or give us a call today (954)-781-2468.

Medical Assistant