Penn Foster’s online, self-paced Medical Assistant diploma program can help students prepare for industry-standard exams from home. Geared toward building foundational skills, you’ll cover courses from an Introduction to Medical Terminology to a Clinical Procedures lab to build your knowledge in the field.
To provide students with the concepts and skills to gain employment in an outpatient setting. Students will be prepared to perform administrative and clinical duties under the direction of a physician, mid-level provider, or licensed nurse.
In this course, you’ll develop the necessary skills to ensure your success in the program. You’ll learn how you can improve your study skills, so you’re able to use a number of tools that will help you to be successful. This course will also introduce you to healthcare, the healthcare industry in the United States, and the roles that healthcare workers play in that industry.
In this course, you’ll learn how law affects healthcare practitioners, the origin of law that affects medical professionals, the basics of the process of litigation and its alternatives, the common-law basis for the confidentiality of healthcare information, and the laws regulating healthcare information collected and maintained by government agencies.
This course introduces the reimbursement process and the various methodologies involved, such as fee-for-service and episode-of-care methodologies. The course also covers important information regarding payment systems, fee schedules, chargemasters, coding, and the internal audit process. Finally, the course explains the fundamentals and types of health insurance and provides test preparation for the certification exam.
This course will familiarize you with various body systems including medical terms, structure, function, diseases, disorders, and treatments. You’ll also learn drug delivery systems, drug administration routes, drug classifications, and commonly used medications for various organ system disorders.
This course is a continuation of Body Systems and Medical Terminology 1. You’ll continue to learn about various body systems, drug delivery systems, drug administration routes, drug classifications, and commonly used medications for various organ system disorders. You’ll also learn basic medication calculations, storage, how to assist patients with administration, and proper documentation.
This course describes healthcare professionals who can identify the four subdivisions of pharmacology and different drug classifications, including vitamins and minerals. Pathology and Pharmacology will also prepare you to explain the causes of infectious disease and techniques used to stop its spread. Finally, you’ll review the basic etiology of common diseases and conditions.
This course is designed to help you understand the reimbursement process and the various methodologies involved. You’ll be introduced to billing cycles and how health information technology is used in medical offices, and learn about basic accounting transaction terminology and apply this information to enter patient charges and payments.
In this course, you’ll begin with an overview of coding concepts, terms, and procedures. You’ll explore the history of the ICD-10 coding system. You’ll code diagnoses in the ICD-10-CM and use the chapter-specific coding guidelines to code diseases and conditions with specific and unique rules. You’ll then learn how to code procedures in the ICD-10-PCS, rounding out your training in the basics of coding with ICD-10.
Then, you’ll concentrate on the diagnoses or procedures that don’t seem to fit into any specific coding category. You’ll also learn about general coding guidelines for inpatient and outpatient procedures and physician office coding using CPT, HCPCS Level I, and HCPCS Level II procedure coding.
This course, Clinical Procedures Theory, will provide you with the theoretical principles and clinical skills that are essential to working as a medical assistant. These tasks range from greeting patients and getting information from them to administering injectable medication and teaching patients about special procedures and their plan of care. An applied learning approach to the role of the medical assistant is threaded throughout each unit of the textbook.
This course focuses on clinical lab procedures. The first thing to take care of while working in a clinical lab is safety. The spread of infection and diseases can compromise the specimens and the people who work in the labs. As you plan on taking the responsibilities associated with the healthcare setting, you must understand that discipline is extremely important to analyze and perform the tasks related to labs. This course will not only provide you with tasks to practice your skills in the field, it will also help you understand the effective techniques used to ease the lab processes. Read the lessons carefully and apply the knowledge on completing the tasks assigned in the course to be a successful healthcare professional.
The goal of this externship is to provide the students with the hands-on experience necessary for developing their skills as medical assistant. The externship is 160 hours, nonpaid. You’ll be required to complete a daily journal of your experiences and document how you’ll complete the objectives. This externship will help you apply your skills in real-life settings and gain some experience.
