What It Means to Become a Medical Office Assistant

Being a Medical Office Assistant (MOA) is a demanding yet rewarding career. As a MOA, you’re always going to be busy, talking to clients, scheduling appointments, and getting the necessary healthcare documentation that’s required for the patients to receive the care that they need for a healthy life.

MOA work is not simply just like any other job. It combines administration, healthcare, and customer service. These skills don’t just impact the work at the office, rather it has a greater impact on the health of the community in that area.

What the Job Entails

When you’re a MOA, no work day is the same since you will have new patients every day and will need to consider their unique health conditions when working with them. You may need to do more than just administrative duties, such as taking temperature, blood pressure, and pulse rate to ensure the doctor can get to the heart of the matter faster.

In general, the duties of a MOA are as follows:

Answering queries over the phone and email, booking and maintaining appointments, helping patients who walk-in, registering and screening patients, taking patients to their examination rooms, printing prescriptions or sending it to the pharmacy, processing insurance and payments, organizing digital and physical files, managing inventory of the medical office supplies, sterilizing medical tools, and more.

As a medical office assistant, you can work at a single location or multiple facilities which include walk-in clinics, specialists’ offices, and hospitals, dividing your time by the shifts that you need to take. This is common for many medical office assistants to do, while you can choose what’s best for you.

Qualities You Should Have

As a medical office assistant, it’s very important to exercise patience and be empathetic. Many times, patients can get frustrated with delays or with the healthcare system for various reasons that may be out of your control. You will need to deal with them in an understanding manner that gets the point across for what you can do for them and explain the process.

Communication and organization are also key, as they are the center points of everything you will do as a medical office assistant. You’re not only dealing with patients at the clinic you work at, but also discussing issues with the doctor, contacting medical laboratories, hospitals, pharmacies, and more. You need to be well organized and stay on top of everything that you need to do.

Being proactive is also something that you will need to exercise in any environment that you work in. Taking initiative will not only enhance your career in the long run but also make your job go more smoothly every day as you’ll deal with all tasks efficiently to the benefit of not only yourself but also the patients.

Income and Advancement

As a MOA, you’ll always be in demand and find employment in this field. There’s moderate growth in the field and steady demand for professionals in this role for the next 10 years, according to the Government of Canada job bank.

Medical office assistants can have a starting salary of $23.23 per hour and later on have an average salary of $27 to $29 per hour, depending on the circumstances. On the top end, people in this role can make up to $34.86 per hour. While these are the typical wages, you can always negotiate pay based on your unique situation and work environment.

After completing a medical office assistant and unit clerk program, you will have various opportunities to get additional training and advance your career. You may choose to learn other specific skills in the medical field and get certificates, or gain some experience and do extra education to advance to a different role such as a nurse. Many medical office assistants stay in the role and eventually move up to different managerial positions, which increases their duties and allows them to receive a higher income.

Education In Medical Office Assistant 

Becoming a MOA is worthwhile because the education and training for it is relatively short and you will get practical experience that will help you once you graduate. Many students are hired at their place of internship and find work that’s meaningful to them. Medical office assistants realize the importance of their work and take it seriously.

Interested in becoming a medical office assistant and making a difference in your community? ABM College’s medical office assistant and unit clerk diploma program will get you prepared for a career in this field in only 54 weeks. With flexible hours and availability, you can study at a pace that works for you and get the required skills and training that fit your schedule.

It’s a great option for any person, whether you are looking for a career change, are a mature student, or fresh out of high school. Contact us today for more information or learn more about becoming a medical office assistant on our blog.