Medical Assistants perform routine clinical and clerical duties to keep offices of optometrists running smoothly. The tasks of Medical Assistants change from office to office, depending on the office size.
Medical Assistants should be able to complete clerical tasks. Those duties can include answering phones, greeting patients, updating and filing patient medical records, completing insurance paperwork, handling correspondence, planning patient appointments, arranging for hospital stays and lab tests, or handling billing and bookkeeping.
Medical Assistants will spend a lot of their time in the clinic area. Clinical tasks may include taking medical histories and taking vital signs, clarifying treatment plans to patients, scheduling patients for examinations and helping during examinations. The career is projected to grow faster than average, ranking medical assisting among the fastest growing careers over the 2008-18 decade.