Medical Office Administrator Career Information
Job Descriptions December 17, 2012Medical office administrators, at times referred to as administrative assistants or medical secretaries, are responsible for performing various support tasks (including clerical work) at insurance companies, doctor’s offices, and medical offices. In this article, we will show candidates what prerequisites they need to satisfy in order to become a medical office administrator.
Job Profile of a Medical Office Administrator
They are employed by health departments, laboratories and hospitals. These professionals are required to know about basic healthcare procedures and medical terminology. Their job responsibilities include purchase of office and medical supplies, information management, and in certain instances, project management.
Responsibilities
During the course of their daily work, medical office administrators engage in organizing medical records, scheduling appointments and answering phones, apart from other functions such as assisting physicians with various articles or presentations, preparing reports, and processing insurance forms. Still other duties include scheduling patients for procedures including hospitalization and recording medical histories — in this, they employ their knowledge of customer service and medical procedures to good effect.
Medical office administrators perform bookkeeping functions; they prepare tax and other financial reports, and process invoices. They are expected to have sufficient knowledge of computers to the extent of being able to use word processing and accounting software, apart from spreadsheets. They are required to operate office machines such as dictation machines, credit card equipment and fax machines.
Prerequisites
While medical administrative assistants are not required to hold a particular degree, they are expected to have expertise in medical processes with previous specialized training in the field (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)). There are many training courses for medical office administrators that are offered at different technical schools and community colleges. In accordance with their career and educational objectives, candidates have a choice of an associate degree, diploma and certificate courses in the field. Coursework includes administrative methods, medical office transcription and medical coding procedures. Topics covered include medical terms, computerized medical office procedures, anatomy and medical ethics, apart from workplace relations, correspondence, bookkeeping software and records management.
