Mistaken Identitiy and Job Title in the Medical Office

No where is the need for proper identification and personal integrity as great as in the medical and healthcare field where doctors and allied health professionals continually deal with people that are vulnerable, and in need of guidance and care.

• Expectations of the Medical Assistant
  Appearance can positively, or negatively influence the opinion one has of the medical assistant, and the overall reputation of the facility.

• Employers are becoming more selective in their choice and employment background checks are becoming increasingly common.

Background Check for Medical Assistants

Information that can be included in a background check includes driving records, details of past employments, criminal records, military records, educational records, character references and drug test records. Accepting a resume at face value has resulted in companies wasting time and money due to frequent hire-and-fire situations and negligent hiring lawsuits that resulted from the actions of an errant employee. Rapid employee turn-over and negligence law suits can seriously damage a company's credibility and lead to hefty fines. When it comes to jobs that require interacting with children, the infirm, and the aged a pre-employment background check is one way to ensure the employer remains compliant with federal and state regulations.

An pre-employment background check can be conducted in-house or can be outsourced to third parties that may include private investigators, H.R firms that screen applicants and data brokers who are established online. Under FCRA regulations the applicant must be informed and give consent to a third-party background check and upon completion be provided with a copy of the investigations; however, if the employment background check is conducted in-house, the employer is not bound to obtain the applicant's consent or provide details of the reason for rejecting his application. Companies are now conducting employee background checks from databases all over the world and whatever information is available online. Many are also using facebook and MySpace to profile their applicants, in inofficial way to get information.

Mistaken Identitiy and Job Title 

It is illegal for a medical assistant to pose as a nurse. Falsely calling yourself the nurse, or accepting the fact that someone addresses you as such, is unacceptable and illegal. It makes no difference, whether the medical assistant is a complete novice, or a former nurse hired into the position of a medical assistant, he/she must be properly identified and referred to as just that: a medical assistant. Medical assistants should NEVER encourage patients to call them nurse, or silently tolerate it if a patient mistakenly addresses them as such.

The intent of protecting the title "nurse" is to protect the public from individuals who are not nurses, yet deceitfully lead the public to believe they are to provide certain services that only nurses are qualified to provide. Twenty four states are known to have statutory protections for the title nurse: AZ, CA, CO, FL, HI, ID, KY, MD, MN, MO, NE, NV, NM, NY, NC, ND, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, WA, WV, WI. Feel free to comment on this topic in our medical assistant web forum!