According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the occupation of medical assistants (MA) has found much use in the United States recently. Further, the medical assistants were approximately 600,000 in 2014. Although the role of a medical assistant is crucial in the American healthcare today, it has been one of the most underappreciated.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the number of medical assistants is projected to grow by 23 percent between 2014 and 2014, showing a fast growth compared to other occupations. Although medical assistants have existed for many years, their traditional roles include escorting patients to the exam room as well as observing patient’s vital signs unless a physician needed assistance with a procedure. In the modern world, their role has been transformed. The new MA’s role includes job enlargement, job enrichment, as well as job rotation. Most of them devote more time making the work days of physicians easier and helping patients get easy access to care. Although the United States medical care relies so much on medical assistance to meet to meet production demand, they are paid low wages. On average, they earn 14.41 dollars per hour (Chapman " Blash, 2017).
On the other hand, medical assistants do not have medical degrees since the majority of the training programs take less than one year, thus resulting in a certificate of completion. It is relatively easy to hire them since they undergo a short time job training. In most instances, medical assistants come from the community around. In America today, there is an ongoing effort by education centers to change the role of MA.
Conclusion
The experience of patients would probably be worse without the assistance of medical assistants. Additionally, the work of physicians would be more time-pressured. It is time the role of medical assistants is recognized through pay commensurate since their use is a crucial driver of improved value in the United States healthcare.
Reference
Chapman, S. A., " Blash, L. K. (2017). New roles for medical assistants in innovative primary care practices. Health Services Research, 52, 383-406. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5269548/
