How to Choose the Right Medical Assistant Career Path

Medical assisting is a wonderful career choice for those with a strong desire to help people. Training to become a medical assistant is relatively short compared to other healthcare careers, making it an appealing career option with room for growth. There are multiple different career paths you can take once you achieve your goal of becoming a medical assistant.

Medical Assistant Career Paths

There are many different career paths you can take as a medical assistant. For many medical assistants, they discover that being a medical assistant is the perfect career fit for them and choose to remain a medical assistant for many years. For others, they view medical assisting as a foundation, or building block into a different healthcare career. What matters most is determining which medical assistant career path is the right one for you.

Here are some common medical assistant career paths to explore:

Specialized Medical Assistant

One of the many benefits to becoming a medical assistant is the wide array of specialties you can choose to work in, such as obstetrics, pediatrics, oncology, surgery, orthopedics, cardiology, urology and more.

Medical assistants who work in a specialized field often receive additional training or education beyond what a medical assistant normally receives. As a specialist you may get to work with advanced technology or equipment specific to your field and you can always decide to switch to a different specialty down the road for even more career options.

Medical Coding and Billing Specialist

Many medical assistants are trained to handle administrative and clinical duties, so it’s not uncommon for them to do some medical billing and coding while working as a medical assistant. For those wishing to switch from clinical duties to administrative, deciding to pursue a full-time career as a medical coding and billing specialist is a viable option.

Medical Office Manager

Since many medical assistants already possess some administrative training and skills, deciding to advance into a more managerial office position might be a good career path to explore.

Phlebotomist

Phlebotomists are healthcare professionals who work in hospitals, labs, and doctors’ offices and draw blood from patients for laboratory tests or blood donation drives. Many medical assistants receive phlebotomy training, either during their schooling or on the job, or both, making the switch to a phlebotomist a fairly easy transition.

Medical Assistant Instructor

Another great medical assistant career path is to become a medical assisting instructor. Many schools need experienced, certified medical assistants to teach classes because they have real world knowledge and experience to share with the class. Some may choose to work part-time as an instructor, while still continuing to work part-time as a medical assistant, while others may choose to pursue instructing as a full-time job.

Home Health Aide

One interesting medical assistant career path is to work as a home health aide. Home health aides are usually not required in most states to be certified as medical assistants, so to have that kind of training and experience can give you a big advantage over your competitors.

Which Path is Right for You?

No matter which medical assistant career path ends up being right for you, simply deciding to become a medical assistant is a great first step. Contact Athena Career Academy today to learn more about our academic programs and how you can get started on the path to a rewarding career as a medical assistant.