Medical Assistant's Duties
Medical assistant's duties include clinical and administrative tasks, such as answering telephones,
checking appointments, arranging laboratory services, photocopying medical records, and handling billing and
bookkeeping tasks. This goes hand-in-hand with obtaining demographic information from patients that arrive for
their appointment. Also, organizing the patient's medical records and taking them into the clinical area for
check-ups, exams, or treatments is part of the daily routine.
Steve Verno, a certified medical biller in Florida recently told us: "Doctors can
be tricky in their wants and desires. Some have been burned badly by a previous employee, so they don't want that
to happen again." The certification bodies have established standards of practice for medical
assistants, and disciplinary measures for violations. When complaints are filed against a certified,
or registered medical assistant, it will be investigated and appropriately dealt with. A medical office
hiring a CMA, or RMA can request the applicant's status and verify their credentials.
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Attitude and Dependability
The medical assistant's main duty is to support health care providers in all areas of the
medical office, and practice. Their taking care of essential administrative and clinical tasks allows the
doctor to focus directly on the patient's medical and health concerns without being bogged down by daily office
maintenance routines.
Attitude: Whenever the medical assistant interacts with
others communication must be carried out in a honest and compassionate manner, while treating everybody
equally with understanding, dignity, caring, and kindness! A general attitude of friendliness and empathy
can go a long way.
Dependability: Doctors and patients expect their medical
assistants to be reliable, skillful, truthful, trustworthy, efficient, and confident.
Administrative Responsibilities
Most medical assistants in the administrative areas are asked to check on insurance claims, and
referrals, and review encounter forms. However, when it comes to medical billing and coding procedures for
reimbursement it is important to know CPT and ICD-9 codes. A medical assistant with coding and billing
responsibilities would benefit greatly from additional training before getting involved with this rather complex
process. Lack of knowledge could easily hurt the provider and the patient and could also lead to a possible audit,
fines, loss of license, or sanctions from Medicare and Medicaid.
Steve tells us: "The doctor may be the one to select the codes, however, when
placing the codes on the claim form, and you don't know what you are doing, you could assign the wrong ICD-9 code
to the wrong CPT code. In addition, you might not properly fill out the claim form causing the claim to be denied
payment - causing a loss of revenue to the provider, the provider's staff, and you. If the claim is improperly
denied, not having the right training may cause you to bill a patient and possibly violate a State or Federal
Law."
MA15Years tells us: "Care for your patients as it was your mother,
your father, grandmother etc., and you will have happy patients, which trickles down to happy co-workers. And most,
and foremost, treat others the way you want to be treated and be proud of your title, yourself, and your
accomplishments."
More on the Medical Billing Community Forum.
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