Once you’ve started your career path as a medical assistant, you’re probably wondering where else you can take your medical career.
Medical assisting is a great career and can be a way to branch out into other careers in the medical field, working in medical offices, hospitals, and healthcare facilities. Wondering what comes after medical assistant?
After gaining experience in the field and climbing the career ladder, you may find yourself exploring management roles or transitioning into a different healthcare career path.
There is enormous potential and opportunity for medical assistants to enjoy career advancement in different positions, with the right experience and training.
Why Should You Look for Career Advancement as a Medical Assistant?
Medical assistant jobs are projected to increase by 14% between 2021 and 2031 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. [1] With demand for medical professionals increasing, there is opportunity for you to enter the healthcare field as a medical assistant. There are also several reasons to advance your career within the medical industry.
Improved Salary
The average salary for experienced medical assistants is often greater than that of entry level medical assistants. Expanding your career path as a medical assistant can come through specialized certifications or training. You may also choose additional education to pursue specific positions with better salary and benefits.
Wider Array of Career Opportunities
Expanding your training and experience will give you the potential to move into leadership or management roles in healthcare. This can give you more options for career development.
Larger Professional Skillset
You already have may skills from being a medical assistant, and you can further advance your career by learning additional skills, such as:
- Analytical skills
- Care management
- Time management
- Leadership and management
- Organizational skills
What Other Career Roles Can You Expand into As a Medical Assistant?
Curious about what's after medical assistant? With further training and experience, you can transition into various roles within the medical field, enhancing your position and potentially securing a more lucrative compensation package.
Many medical assistants further their education and get a clinical or administrative degree or specialized certifications; or they can be promoted to a supervisor or managerial position through their medical assistant experience and credentials.
Here are some of the other roles people commonly move to after gaining experience as a medical assistant.
Medical Office Manager
A medical office manager is an experienced medical professional who makes sure that administrative tasks in the office are taken care of correctly and on time. This role requires taking on responsibility within the doctor’s office, hospital, or medical facility. The medical office manager may oversee patient records, payroll, billing, or even office budgets. This is a middle-management role for those who have excellent organizational, leadership, analytical, and communication skills.
Lead Medical Assistant
A lead medical assistant works under the direction of a physician in a doctor’s office, or head registered nurse in a hospital. The lead medical assistant gives guidance to other medical assistants on staff, and provides excellent patient care, acting as a leader in the medical team.
Medical Records Manager / Health Information Manager
Medical assistants who are also certified and experienced in medical billing and coding may, with time education and experience, be suited for a health information management position. This role usually requires a bachelor’s degree in health information management and extensive experience with medical records and health information systems.
Medical records managers and heath information managers need deep analytical and problem-solving skills, experience with managing medical records, and strong communication skills.
Healthcare Administration
This can be any number of leadership or managerial roles held by healthcare professionals in doctor’s offices, hospitals, or medical offices. You might have a wide range of responsibilities, including operations oversight, finance, management, or administrative. Most medical assistants can move to a healthcare administration role inside a physician’s office or within a department in a larger facility.
Executive Medical Office Secretary
An executive medical office secretary focuses primarily on the administrative tasks associated with running a physician’s office or medical office. They perform secretarial duties using specific knowledge of medical terminology and hospital, clinic, or laboratory procedures. Ann executive medical office secretary may schedule appointments, oversee medical billing of patients, record medical charts and record medical charts, reports, and correspondence.
Physician’s Assistant
This position is a sizeable average salary bump from medical assistant, but it requires additional education and training. To pursue the educational component of pursuing this path, you usually must have medical work experience as a prerequisite.
Physician assistants usually work in doctor’s offices and clinics, and sometimes hospitals and emergency rooms. A physician’s assistant is allowed to assist in some procedures like surgeries and can also prescribe medications.
Considering the next step after medical assistant? Becoming a physician’s assistant can take between 5 to 8 years, and you usually must earn a Master’s degree through an accredited school, then pass a licensure examination.
Become a Medical Assistant in Less Than a Year
The Medical Assistant Program at Campus, formerly known as MTI College, prepares students to perform the duties of a entry-level medical assistant. At the conclusion of training, students will earn an NCMA certification as a medical assistant. Our medical assisting students learn medical terminology, anatomy and physiology, and pharmacology. Each student in the Medical Assisting program completes an off‐campus Medical Assisting Externship along with standard course requirements to graduate.
Wondering what's after medical assistant? Contact our friendly Admissions team today for more information on advancing your career in the medical field through our Medical Assisting program at Campus!
[1] Note: The data provided above are from a source unaffiliated with Campus, formerly known as MTI College, are for informational purposes only and represent the employment field as a whole. They are not solely specific to Campus graduates and, by providing the above information, Campus makes no representation, direct or implied, or opinion regarding employability.