Medical Assistant Degree Details

General Orientation

• Comprehend the current employment outlook for the medical assistant
• Compare the allied health professions and understand their relation to medical assisting
• Understand medical assistant credentialing requirements and the process to obtain the credential
• Comprehend the importance of credentialing
• Have knowledge of the general responsibilities of the medical assistant
• Define scope of practice for the medical assistant and comprehend the conditions for practice in the state where the medical assistant is employed

Anatomy and Physiology

• Comprehend and explain to the patient the importance of diet and nutrition
• Effectively convey and educate patients regarding the proper diet and nutrition guidelines
• Identify categories of patients that require special diets or diet modifications
• Identify the body systems, their structure and functions, and common diseases, symptoms, and etiologies
• Apply the knowledge of all body systems, their structure and functions, and common diseases, symptoms, and etiologies
• Explain the disease processes and treatment modalities

Medical Terminology

• Identify the basic structural parts of a word (i.e., root, prefix, suffix, combinations, spelling and definitions)
• Build medical terms from roots/suffixes to understand the word element combinations that create medical terminology
• Understand the various medical terminology for each specialty
• Identify acceptable medical abbreviations

Medical Law and Ethics

• Identify federal and state guidelines when documenting and releasing medical records or information
• Follow established policies when initiating or terminating medical treatment
• Identify the importance of maintaining liability coverage once employed in the industry
• Explain risk management procedures
• Comply with federal, state, and local health laws and regulations

Psychology of Human Relations

• Define abnormal behavior patterns
• Identify appropriate therapeutic communication skills when working/caring for patients with special needs
• Identify common stages that terminally ill patients go through and list organizations/support groups that can assist patients and family members of patients struggling with terminal illness
• Identify means of advocating on behalf of family/patients, having ability to deal and communicate with family
• Explain developmental stages of life
• Analyze the effect of hereditary, cultural, and environmental influences

Basic Keyboarding/Computer Concepts

• Perform basic keyboarding skills including
  • Locating the keys on a keyboard
  • Typing medical correspondence and basic reports
• Demonstrate the proper use of office machines, computerized systems, and medical software such as:
  • Efficiently maintain and understand different types of medical correspondence and medical reports
  • Apply computer application skills using a variety of electronic programs including both practice management software and EMR software

Pharmacology

• Demonstrate accurate occupational math and metric conversions for proper medication administration
• Properly utilize PDR handbook and other drug references to identify a drug's classification, usual dosage, usual side effects, and contraindications
• Identify common abbreviations that are accepted in prescription writing
• Identify legal aspects of writing prescriptions, including federal and state laws
• Comply with federal, state, and local health laws and regulations

Medical Office Business Procedures/Management

• Perform basic clerical functions
• Prepare medical records
• Schedule appointments
• Apply concepts for office procedures
• Locate resources and information for patients and employers
• Schedule inpatient and outpatient admissions
• Post entries on a day sheet
• Perform billing and collection procedures
• Perform accounts payable procedure
• Perform accounts receivable procedures
• Post adjustments
• Process credit balance
• Process refunds
• Post non-sufficient funds
• Post collection agency payments
• Apply third-party guidelines
• Obtain managed care referrals and pre-certifications
• Perform diagnostic and procedural coding
• Prepare and submit insurance claims
• Use physician fee schedule
• Use manual or computerized bookkeeping systems
• Maintain medical facility
• Perform routine maintenance of administrative and clinical equipment
• Maintain inventory equipment and supplies
• Recognize effective communication techniques
• Communicate on the recipient’s level of comprehension
• Serve as a liaison between physician and others
• Use proper telephone techniques
• Interview effectively
• Use pertinent medical terminology
• Receive, organize, prioritize, and transmit information expediently
• Recognize and respond to verbal and nonverbal communication
• Perform fundamental writing skills including correct grammar, spelling, and formatting techniques when writing prescriptions, documenting medical records, etc.
• Adapt to individualized needs
• Apply electronic technology

Medical Office Clinical Procedures

• Obtain chief complaint, recording patient history
• Apply principles of aseptic techniques and infection control
• Take vital signs
• Recognize various treatment protocols
• Recognize emergencies and treatments and minor office surgical procedures
  
• Screen and follow up patient test results
• Maintain medication and immunization records
• Wrap items for autoclaving
• Use standard precautions
• Prepare oral and parenteral medications as directed by physician
• Administer oral and parenteral medications as directed by physician
• Prepare examination room and treatment area
• Prepare patient for examinations and treatments
• Assist physician with routine and specialty examinations and treatments
• Assist physician with minor office surgical procedures
• Perform
  • Electrocardiograms
  • Respiratory testing
  • Telephone and in-person screening
  • Sterilization techniques
  • First aid and CPR
• Advise patients of office policies and procedures
• Instruct patients with special needs
• Teach patients methods of health promotion and disease prevention

Medical Laboratory Procedures

• Practice quality control
• Perform selected CLIA-waived tests that assist with diagnosis and treatment
  • Urinalysis
  • Hematology testing
  • Chemistry testing
  • Immunology testing
  • Microbiology testing
  • Kit testing
    • Pregnancy
    • Quick strep
    • Dip sticks
• Dispose of biohazardous materials
• Collect, label, and process specimens
  • Perform venipuncture
  • Perform capillary puncture
  • Perform wound collection procedures
  • Obtain throat specimens for microbiological testing
• Instruct patients in the collection of a clean-catch mid-stream urine specimen
• Instruct patients in the collection of a fecal specimen

Career Development

• Perform the essential requirements for employment such as résumé writing, effective interviewing, dressing professionally, and following up appropriately
• Demonstrate professionalism by
  • Exhibiting dependability, punctuality, and a positive work ethic
  • Exhibiting a positive attitude and a sense of responsibility
  • Maintaining confidentiality at all times
  • Being cognizant of ethical boundaries
  • Exhibiting initiative
  • Adapting to change
  • Expressing a responsible attitude
  • Being courteous and diplomatic
  • Conducting work with scope of education, training, and ability

Objectives:

• Understand how to use your Student Portal, including your My Homepage and My Courses pages.
• Access the Penn Foster Community and use it to find answers.
• Connect with Penn Foster on various social media sites.
• Describe reimbursement systems and the role health information management technicians play in reimbursement.
• Describe how technology is used in health information management.
• Discuss different professional organizations and certifications for health information management technicians.
• Explain the different roles, opportunities, and settings for health information management technicians.

Objectives:

• Create, edit, and illustrate Microsoft® Word™ documents.
• Apply formulas and functions to large data sets in Microsoft® Excel.®
• Incorporate useful charts and graphs to summarize data.
• Add, delete, sort, and lay out table data.
• Create presentations in Microsoft® PowerPoint® using advanced tools, tables, and charts.

Objectives:

• Explain how organisms are structured and how they work.
• Discuss the various forms of life and their processes.

Textbook: Essentials of Biology

Objectives:

• Identify major psychological theories.
• Discuss consciousness, memory, thought, and language.
• Define intelligence, personality, and stress.
• Analyze the role of gender in psychology.
• Explain how community influences behavior.

Textbook: Psychology and Your Life

HUM102-Art Appreciation

This course will provide you with the foundational knowledge needed to critique a variety of artwork.

Objectives:

• Understand artistic media.
• Identify historical periods and artistic movements.
• Explain the roles of the artist and the viewer

HUM-104-Music Appreciation

This course will allow you to understand and appreciate the art of music.

• Explain the roles of the composer and the listener.
• Describe music theory, instrumentation, and historical periods.
• Distinguish various styles of music.

ENG115-Introduction to Literature

This course will allow you to develop your critical thinking skills and broaden your knowledge of literature.

Objectives:

• Identify themes and forms of literature.
• Define the main genres of literature--poetry, fiction, and drama.

Objectives:

• Effectively use free writing and brainstorming.
• Perfect your ability to edit and revise your writing.
• Apply techniques for getting the reader’s attention.
• Write descriptive essays, first-person narratives, reflective essays, persuasive essays, and effective thesis statements.

Textbook: Successful College Writing
Supplement: The Little, Brown Essential Handbook

Objectives:

• Search the Internet more effectively.
• Get tips about search engines and reliable websites.
• Learn how to search libraries and other information centers for important, useful information.

Objectives:

• Describe civil and criminal law, sources of law, and the steps of litigation.
• Distinguish between liability, negligence, and malpractice and explain how they relate to medical assistants.
• Explain defenses against medical malpractice and against criminal charges.
• Identify the various ethical issues that health-care professionals face.
• Explain the uses and content of medical records.
• Describe the legal significance of confidentiality obligations.
• Explain the core concepts of HIPAA’s final Privacy Rule.
• Summarize the role of peer review in confidentiality issues.
• Describe confidentiality and security issues related to electronic medical records.
• Describe the public duties of health care professionals and workplace legalities.
• Define and differentiate living will, health care proxy, DNR orders, and durable power of attorney.
• Discuss legal and ethical issues at the beginning of life and childhood and those related to death and dying.
• Describe health-care trends and the future of health-care delivery.

Textbook: Ethics for Medical Careers

Objectives:

• Define word elements, roots, prefixes, suffixes, combining vowels, and combining forms.
• Describe the basic rules for building a medical word.
• Describe the uses and effects of drugs on the body.
• Distinguish among generic drug names, official drug names, trade names, and chemical names.
• Identify and spell word elements, names of diagnostic procedures, diagnoses, treatment procedures, and abbreviations related to the integumentary and musculoskeletal systems; cardiovascular system; the blood and lymph system; the respiratory system; the digestive and urinary systems; the reproductive system; the endocrine system; and the nervous system.
• Define terms related to the psychology and psychiatry fields.
• Identify and define terms associated with conditions of the eyes and ears.
• Identify and define terms commonly used on operative reports.
• Discuss the field of oncology and potential careers in the oncology field.
• Identify diagnostic procedures related to radiology and nuclear medicine.

Textbook: Medical Terminology, A Living Language

Objectives:

• Define terms referring to location, position, direction, body planes, and sections.
• Identify and describe the basic anatomical structures and major cavities of the human body.
• Discuss the process and mechanics of homeostasis.
• Explain how human anatomy and physiology are related.
• List and discuss the organizational levels of the human body in order of increasing complexity and explain how these levels are related to each other.
• Explain the structures, functions, and diseases of the skeletal, muscular, nervous, and endocrine systems in humans.

Textbook: Body Structures and Functions (with accompanying CD-ROM)

Objectives:

• Identify and describe the components, functions, and disorders of blood, the circulatory system, the lymphatic system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, the urinary system, the reproductive system, and genetics.
• Describe the processes of inflammation and coagulation.
• Explain the disease mechanisms involved in the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
• Describe different types of microorganisms.
• Discuss the body’s defense mechanisms against infection.
• Identify and describe the functions of water, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals, trace elements, and vitamins.
• Explain the principles of healthy nutrition and describe nutritional disorders.
• Identify and explain the functions of the reproductive system.
• Describe the disorders of both male and female reproductive systems.
• Define genetics, mutation, and lethal genes.
• Describe selected genetic disorders.
• Explain the potential of genetic engineering.

Objectives:

• Use percentages, discounts, and interest formulas.
• Analyze present worth and sinking funds.
• Understand how to buy in installments and price merchandise.
• Explain depreciation, insurance, equations, and formulas.
• Discuss an overview of investments and statistics.

Textbook: Practical Business Math Procedures