Before you enroll in any medical assistant program, you should not just pick any medical assistant program you come across. It is very important that you look for the accredited medical assistant programs in order to be assured that the program you choose is recognized by the authoritative organizations.
With the influx of both traditional and online medical assistant programs, you need to be able to tell the ones that have the correct and proper accreditation from those that do not have. The reason being that is the accredited medical assistant program will definitely help ease your way into the medical assistance profession after you finish the program.
Accredited medical assistant programs are offered in quite a number of post-secondary learning institutions and they are not limited to just colleges and universities. As a matter of fact, many educational institutions have offered these programs online since the number of individuals interested in studying online has skyrocketed these days.
Studying accredited medical assistant programs online can certainly be advantageous to those who are currently working but would like to pursue a medical assistant job later on. By taking the necessary online training courses, not only people can eventually qualify for such a position, but also save them a lot of time commuting between school and work.
For medical assistant programs to become accredited, they must go through the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs or CAAHEP which has already accredited over six hundred (600) medical assistant programs in more than five hundred (500) schools.
The Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools or ABHES is another organization that decides which medical assistant programs become accredited medical assistant programs. They have accredited over two hundred (200) medical assistant programs. Accreditation is only given if the medical assistant programs have been able to meet the educational standards and requirements set by the CAAHEP or the ABHES.
The distinct and most important advantage of going with medical assistant programs that have been given their accreditation is that graduates of the programs will be able to become certified or registered medical assistants later on. Graduates of accredited medical assistant programs can go on to take the Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) Exam given by the American Association of Medical Assistants or the AAMA. Graduates can also choose to take the Registered Medical Assistant or RMA Examination offered by the American Medical Technologists (AMT) association. Both the AAMA and the AMT encourage medical assistants to be either accredited or registered.
There are two other organizations that provide accreditation for medical assistant programs: the National Healthcareer Association or NHA and the National Center for Competency Testing or NCCT. The NHA has two different kinds of certification, one is a Certified Clinical Medical Assistant (CCMA) and the other one is a Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA). On the other hand, the NCCT can certify you as a National Certified Medical Assistant or NCMA and requires its medical assistants to have a minimum number of hours of continuing education yearly. Both organizations also require graduates to be from accredited medical assistant programs only.