Tough Decisions: Online Medical Assistant Program or Campus Based?

No one can tell you which type of medical assistant program is right for you. Ultimately, you are the one who must choose which path to take to learn your medical assistant skills. Part of your decision will be based on how FAST you want to be done and finished with your training, the cost and how quickly you hope to land your first real medical assistant job.

Rule of thumb is that self-paced online medical assistant courses can be finished the fastest if you apply yourself, however, on the flip side, doctors may not be easily persuaded or convinced to hire you without having direct experience and hands on practice which you would have gotten in a campus based training program. All too many former medical assistant online students have learned a painful lesson.

Things You MUST Ask Before Signing Up for Anything...

As with any kind of education, there are things to be aware of and different programs have their pros and cons. Making a wise choice and informed decisions puts you into a position where you won't have to regret it later. Should you decide that going with a web based program better fits your schedule, budget and personality than bear in mind that no matter which online school you choose you have to ask certain questions BEFORE signing up for anything. We have put a very detailed list of questions to ask before enrolling in any medical assistant program.

First and foremost check out the fees that the online medical assistant school charges for their courses and find out about their refund policy. It is common practice of all reputable online vocational training schools to be up-front with their fees, since they realize it is important to new students to know how much they will be paying for the course. Putting forth a sincere effort to discuss all fees person-to-person over the phone helps to build trust in the school.

You will need to check out the course requirements before signing up for anything.  Each school has different requirements that must be met before entering their program. Almost all online medical assistant programs require a high school diploma while a few want you to have specific course studies from other schools. Some online medical assistant programs, especially those approved by the Department of Education, require competency in complex clinical and technical skills to earn their degree, which can only taught under the direct supervision of a qualified instructor or professional in the field who is familiar with a wide range of medical assistant duties.

There are countless medical assistant students who have told us that finding  their own clinical internship site was EXTREMELY challenging and frustrating and some of them gave up, never earning their medical assistant diploma or degree. Therefore this is probably the most important part of evaluating a prospective online medical assistant school.

Certain online programs operate on the same premise of standard schools and might require that their students complete a minimum number of hours in class room study to be eligible to graduate; so, make sure to ask whether a program is entirely web based, or partially web based. All that is required should be listed in the course description and should be discussed in person during the review process.

Academic degrees is another area where one should put fourth some effort in research before signing up for anything. If the online program does not offer the degree that you need to get the job you want, then it is useless to you as a school. Don't be discouraged, most of the online medical assistant schools, and nursing schools for that matter, allow you to achieve the type of degree that you want.