Medical Office Assistant Salary: Is It Enough?

Ah, the question that boggles the mind of every aspiring healthcare information management professional will finally be made to rest. Can a medical office assistant salary see you through?

Medical office assistants are tasked to maintain and organize patient records in hospitals and clinics. They also assist doctors and nurses in taking patient histories and assessing the patient’s health, giving them injections and prepping them up for lab tests. Medical office assistants also deal with insurance forms and performing data entry tasks that require them to be familiar with standard healthcare codes.

As you can see, it can be a busy job depending on the time of the day or scale of healthcare services your employer offers. At times, the medical assistant may be requested to work on rotating shifts or weekends as well. So, for the volume of work involved, is the salary actually worth it?

BLS Figures

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2010 median pay for medical office assistants averages for $28,860 annually. As far as hourly rates go, medical office assistants can earn $13.87 per hour. Indeed.com, on the other hand, forecasts a higher rate for medical assistants, ranging between $36,000 and $45,000. These rates go higher depending on the job title, seniority level, place of work and state.

Rates are also bound to increase as the job outlook for medical office assistants gets better. As of 2010, there are 527,600 medical office assistants employed in the US. The profession is also expected to grow by 31 percent in this decade, which is deemed by experts as much faster than the average.

Factors that Influence Salary Rates

The ability to maximize one’s salary as a medical office assistant will depend on cost of living of the state, one’s spending habits and number of dependents. At $28,000 or more though, a medical office assistant would be capable of paying for their bills and supporting a family of four. Not bad for a starting salary. Single individuals, of course, would not have a problem with this running rate.

MOA Training

A medical office assistant course can provide aspiring assistants the necessary training they need to perform the job. Meditec, a popular MOA training provider based in Texas, offers competitively-priced courses for allied healthcare professional training.

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Medical Terms and Abbreviations

If you’re an aspiring medical practitioner or allied healthcare professional, then chances are you would be encountering tons of medical terms and abbreviations in your work. Without proper training, you’d be at sea every day. This is why you have to receive proper training whether for medical transcription or coding to familiarize yourself with medical terminology.

Medical terms are divided into sections and categorized based on areas of medical knowledge. Here are some terms that you may encounter from the surgical, obstetrics, and podiatric fields.

Surgical
Surgical words are often used in the healthcare information management field. They are a staple to your everyday work, whether you’re a medical transcriptionist, coder or biller. Found below are a few of them. You may notice that some of them are spelled or pronounced similarly.
•  Auvray
•  Bar’s
•  Battle
•  Bergmann’s
•  Bevan’s
•  blunt and sharp
•  buttonhole
•  Cherney
•  Chernez
•  chevron
•  circular

Podiatric
Podiatric medicine is the field of medicine that deals with treating different disorders relating to the ankle, foot and lower extremities. You’ll encounter medical words from this field since the older generation are often treated for joint and muscle ailments associated with the lower extremities. Here are a few medical words starting with A that you may encounter while on the job:
abductor (muscle)
achillobursitis
aclasis – pathological continuity of structure
acrodermatitis enteropathica
acrokeratosis paraneoplastica – Bazex syndrome
adductor (muscle)
adiposis dolorosa – Dercum disease
aDWF – ankle Doppler wave form
AFO – ankle-foot orthosis
alligator skin – ichthyosis congenita
allylamines – e.g. Naftin (naftifine)
angle, DMMA – distal metatarsal articular, Engel, Fowler-Philip, Kite, talo-first, Taygar
ankylosis
anserinoplasty
antalgic gait
AOFS hindfoot ankle score
apophysitis
aPVR – ankle pulse volume recording
atavistic tarsometatarsal joint
athlete’s foot – tinea pedis, ringworm of the feet
atavism

Obstetrical
Obstetrics words are words used in Gynecology or Obstetrics. These words pertain to the reproductive systems of women and may often denote the status of their pregnancy or birth-giving. Here are a few samples of these words:
T=term births
P=preterm births (prior to 37 weeks gestation)
A=abortions
L=living children

G gravida (number of pregnancies)
P para (number of births of viable offspring)
A or Ab abortus (abortions)

And here are some of the abbreviations that you may encounter as well. These are abbreviations starting with J and K. You might notice that you use some of them on a daily basis. 

JVD - jugular venous distention
JVP - jugular venous pressure
JP - Jackson-Pratt (drainage tube)
K - Potassium
Kcal - kilocalorie
KCI - potassium chloride
Kg - kilogram
Kg-cal - kilogram calorie
Kilo - kilogram
KUB - kidney, ureter, bladder (x-ray)
K-wire - Kirschner wire

For further information on medical terminology abbreviations, visit Meditec’s resource tools page. Meditec is a premier career training provider for various kinds of professionals. The company specializes on allied healthcare career training and offers free guides and resources relating to the field.

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Etymology of Medical Keywords: Histories and Beliefs

To understand medical terms, one must get to their root—etymology—which brings us back to thousands of years of history and civilization. It may be a laborsome endeavor, but you’d be surprised at the kind of joy ride learning about medical terminology and etymologies bring. While it’s true that such etymologies would be useless trivia for most people, you have to admit that it’s fun to learn about them as they make good ice-breakers or topics for conversation. Just don’t go overboard with it or you may be branded as a nerd. 

The field of medicine deals with Greek and Latin-derived terms and codes that seem esoteric for most people. However, learning a little bit about the meaning of the Germanic and Romatic suffixes or prefixes of these terms can give you instant insight on their corresponding meaning and the purpose behind their naming. It can even help you predict what similar words mean.

For example, hepatitis, which derives itself from the Greek word “hepar” originally, relates to the concept of “pleasure”, according to the Journal of Hepatology, the official journal of the European Association for the Study of the Liver. That was because the liver was believed to be the “seat of soul and human feelings” in ancient times. 

You wouldn’t know that if you didn’t search for the root word of hepatitis, won’t you? Browse a dictionary and give it a try.

More Etymology Trivia
The concept of fatty liver in animals has long been established in ancient times. Romance languages, which include Latin, has a term called “ficatum” which was associated with the practice of making geese fat by feeding them with figs (“ficus” in Latin). Apparently, this makes their livers tastier. (This calls to mind the practice of force-feeding geese with corn kernels to make their liver taste buttery and delectable for foie gras.) Thus, mankind has long been aware of why fatty liver exists and the ailments associated to it.

The term for liver—the organ which basically purifies the blood of living organisms—is etymologically derived from the Germanic term, “lifere,” which in turn was connected to life. The liver was also used in the context of Elizabethan body politic, where the king was deemed as the “liver” of the country. 

The use of the word “medicine,” meanwhile, originated in 1200. It came from the Old French term “medecine” which denotes remedy or cure and from Latin “medicina” which means art of healing or remedy. Its first use in the English language was traced back to 14th century.

Fun Learning with Career Advancement
People working in the healthcare field have so much more to learn when it comes to medical terms. At first these terms may seem esoteric and hard to decipher, but recognizing them and using them in reports often will eventually become second-nature to them.

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The Uses of Medical Coding: Why the Job of a Medical Coder is Indispensable to a Medical Practice

Medical coding is a key process in healthcare information management. The medical coder documents the services a medical practice or service provider provides a patient. He or she is adept at summarizing documents and assigning the right codes to the patient’s diseases and health conditions. These documents will then be forwarded to the medical biller for bills processing.

What are Medical Codes?

Diagnosis codes are standardized by various organizations to monitor the occurrence of diseases and health conditions, from chronic diseases to viral and contagious ones. This allows local health departments, health insurance providers, and government initiatives to track and prevent new cases.

Specific Uses of Medical Coding

Medical codes and classifications are used for the following:
-    Statistical analysis of cases and administration of medical response
-    Reimbursement
-    Research and decision-making
-    Surveillance of disease occurrence and pandemic outbreaks

Advantages of Using Medical Codes and Coding Systems

Medical coding seems to be challenging to newbies in the healthcare information field. Who could blame them? After all, codes merely seem like esoteric letters and numbers combined together to burden coders of making meaning of medical terminologies. But through proper medical coder training, such challenges may be lessened in the long run. The electronics records systems are also easy to use and provide the following advantages to coders:
1.    Coders will eventually get accustomed to the highly accurate codings and standard abbreviations, and will help them become better at editing codes
2.    Since the coding systems are automated, records can be coded quicker instead as compared with manual coding
3.    The new electronic health records system works with most database, saving you time from unnecessary conversions. The system also allows third-party review.
4.    You can add user-reported corrections to a thesaurus and make them available for future coding sessions
5.    You can access any type of coding system dictionaries
6.    You can easily modify scripts and platform for updating coding dictionaries and modify review standards
7.    The new coding systems also automatically produce audits that will ensure your employer’s compliance with 21 CFR Part 11.

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