Medical Assistant

If you decide to become a medical assistant, you can prepare to play a valuable role in today's medical clinics and hospitals. By providing both clinical and administrative assistance, medical assistants deliver patient care, help the physician and work to keep the medical office running smoothly. Medical assistants perform administrative tasks such as filing medical records, filling out insurance forms, scheduling appointments and lab services, and handling correspondence and billing. Clinical responsibilities include preparing patients for their appointments, taking medical histories, recording vital signs, explaining treatments and assisting the physician during examinations. Our medical assisting program in Wilmington, Delaware, can prepare you in both clinical and administrative responsibilities.

Our Medical Assistant program in Wilmington, Delaware, includes medical and administrative courses. You may study transcription, accounting and insurance procedures in your medical assisting program. Medical assistant students also typically train in medical law, office practices and patient relations.

Medical assisting is one of the fastest-growing career fields today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011 Edition. In fact, employment is projected to grow by 34% through 2018. Due to advances in technology, our nation's growing elderly population and increased patient care, the need for medical assistants continues to rapidly increase. Job growth is also due to the increasing number of healthcare facilities that need more personnel that can handle both clinical and administrative duties to allow physicians to see more patients throughout the day.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-2011 Edition, medical assistants held around 483,600 jobs in the United States in 2008. Of those, 62% worked in physicians' offices, 13% worked in private or public hospitals, 11% worked in health practitioners' offices (such as chiropractors and optometrists), and others worked in outpatient care facilities and residential care facilities.