Medical assistants perform administrative and clinical duties such as recording vital signs, storing blood samples for testing, preparing patients for examination, drawing blood, giving injections, administering medication and first aid. This is what Wikipedia says about Medical Assistants. Here you can find the best medical assistant schools offering certification.
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Medical Assistant Training & Education
Before getting hired by any clinic or hospital, it is essential to know medical procedures. If you plan to become a certified medical assistant, you should enrol in a CMA training course. It would help if you thought quickly under pressure which you can learn by taking some online courses on this topic. The best way to do that is through convenient study programs of the most respected and award-winning online universities such as DeVry University and Kaplan University.
Medical Assistant Salary
If you plan to become a certified medical assistant, the salaries you can expect will be around $29,000 yearly. Some of the highest-paid medical assistants work in Orthopedic Specialists, which pays them an average wage of about $36,000 per year. On the other hand, you can become a Certified Nursing Assistant or CNA with only on-the-job training, making it one of the easiest jobs in America, allowing them to make an average salary of about $26,000 annually.
Medical Assistant Certifications
After completing their course on medical assisting, they are required to pass an exam called the Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA). Having a CCMA certificate will help you get your foot in the job market door faster than without one.
With thousands of new positions becoming available each year due to annual turnover and growth, it’s no surprise that there is a massive demand for certified medical assistants (CMA). Here are 3 of the certifications that a Medical Assistant can go for, a list that we created with the team’s help at MedAssistantEdu.
BLS, PALS, and NRP are three of the most common recertification exams among AHA Certified Medical Assistants.
BLS or Basic Life Support is a certification that requires no prerequisite. This exam is concerned with the knowledge and skills needed to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), relieve choking safely, use an automated external defibrillator (AED) and alleviate other emergencies. The main focus of this test is on how to respond to an urgent, life-threatening situation. For candidates to earn their BLS certification, they must complete a hands-on skills evaluation, which means you have to practice CPR on a dummy while being graded by your proctoring organization.
No matter where you are, the same BLS CPR certification is valid. This includes hospitals, clinics, nursing homes or wherever you choose to work. It’s important to note that since BLS recertifications take place every two years, candidates need to be prepared for the skills evaluation portion of the test, which requires them to prove their competency with hands-on skills. If they fail, they will have one year before they can retake the exam. If a medical assistant has let their certification expire, it will not affect you until your current certificate expires, and it must be renewed before taking this certification.
The Joint Commission ranks this certification as number 1 among all AHA recertification exams because of its safety measures. All of the information that they provide is consistent with the most up-to-date industry standards.
The PALS or Pediatric Advanced Life Support certification exam for medical assistants deals with the diagnosis and treatment options of critically ill or injured children, pediatric cardiopulmonary arrest, codes, sickle cell anaemia crisis care in children up to adolescence, and other areas related to paediatrics. If you are interested in working in a hospital setting, this certification is essential because it can be used when job hunting at hospitals looking for paediatricians. This certification must be renewed every three years, so please note that your recertification date will need to be within 3 years to complete this process successfully.
The Joint Commission also ranks this certification as the #1 recertification exam among all AHA certified medical assistants because of its reliability in teaching skills needed to save lives. All of the information provided is up-to-date and consistent with the latest industry standards.
NRP or Neonatal Resuscitation Program is a certification that deals with diagnosing, treating, and preventing emergencies among newborn infants, including neonatal seizures, respiratory failure, apnea, shock, or cardiac arrest. This certification must be renewed every three years, so please note that your recertification date will need to be within 3 years to complete this process successfully.
This certification can help candidates get positions at hospitals, but those with an NRP certification will have a higher chance of getting hired than candidates with no accreditation. This is because hospitals want someone capable of taking care of infants in emergencies.
The Joint Commission ranks the NRP certification as the #1 recertification exam among all AHA certified medical assistants because it provides the same high standard of education that you would find when studying for your initial exam or any other medical assistant certification for that matter, As long as you are willing to put in the effort needed to maintain this goal then there should be no problems passing this test on your first try.
