Continued Warnings About Bad Medical Assistant Schools and Diploma Mills

We have criticized, reported and warned about misleading advertisements and fake schools targeting potential medical assistant students seeking online courses on our website for years. Now, Donald Balasa of the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA) legal department is also raising awareness among prospective medical assistant students with a public note of caution.

Mr. Balasa points out that several AAMA members have informed him of misleading advertising fliers from St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants, a self-study online program. the following language is used in their advertising: "Medical Assistant Program Online. Medical Assistant Home Study Program. Nationally Accredited and Certified Program. 24/7 Convenient Online Classes. St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants now offers a Nationally Accredited and Certified Medical Assistant Program completely online. Yes, Complete This Program in as little as 6-8 weeks." You can read their article titled Misleading Advertisements on their Eye On The Law blog.

Similar warnings about such schools that may not deliver what you expect, including St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants have been on our own websites and medical assistant blogs since 2005. We also filed a rip off report against St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants on the Rip Off Report website for taking content from our Medical Assistant Net website without our permission and publishing it on their own site.
Mr. Balasa states that approximately three years ago the AAMA also reported St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and promises that they will continue to report medical assisting diploma mills to the appropriate governmental authorities.

St. Augustine School of Medical Assistants also has also received several negative ratings with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) from students who feel they were misled, or that they did not receive what they paid for. When it comes to vocational training, especially online, awareness is the key to successes! If an online post-secondary training program, non-traditional university, or so-called virtual college attended is not legit students may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

What Is A Medical Assistant Allowed To Do?

Medical assistants are unlicensed employees in the healthcare system, and local and state laws require that a supervising physician, surgeon, or podiatrist must be present whenever clinical tasks, especially direct patient care procedures, are performed.

Employers, often doctors, who are willing to train their medical assistant directly on the job usually expect at least some prior related work experience in a professional office setting, but what if the medical assistant will be working on the clinical floors administering direct patient care as part of the daily routine?

We know that often there is confusion, because we receive many emails and forum post with questions about specific clinical duties. These questions almost always revolve  around whether a medical assistant is allowed to do a certain tasks, such as:

1. phlebotomy
2. X-rays
3. Holter Monitor and ECG/EKG
4. physical therapy
5. start IV lines
6. transcutaneous nerve stimulation
7. hot and cold pack treatments
8. nebulizer treatments

Despite of the continued absence of specific legislation and licensure requirement for medical assistants in many US states we caution each and everyone that authorized clinical procedures for medical assistants can change from state to state, and that there is NO universal answer.

There still are certain laws that regulate the medical assistant's duties, and spell out what a medical assistant can and cannot do, especially in a clinical setting, for example, some US states mandate limited licenses, or recognized certifications in certain medical technical procedures, such as phlebotomy, IV therapy, and exposing patients to x-rays, or certain therapeutic modalities.

This in turn, also strongly influences what should, and can be taught. If you are planning to pursue a medical assistant career, or are in charge of training a new medical assistant, but are unsure whether there are certain limits, or restrictions, the best source of information regarding the medical assistant's scope of practice is your state's Medical Board/Board of Medical Examiners, State Nursing Board, Department of Health, and professional membership organizations for medical assistants, such as the American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA), or American Medical Technologists (AMT) legal department.

Searching the Internet for "Medical Assistant" - Is Google Search Still Relevant?

When I enter the search term medical assistant into any search engine query box, I essentially mean "what is a medical assistant", not medical assistant jobs, medical assistant training, or one page that gives me a general blah-blah-blah rewritten from the authority sites to get users to click on their over-optimized ads.

At this moment, the 1st page results for "medical assistant" is not good and I am sad to see Google has strongly affected the rankings of Medcialassistant.net, which used to be the top ranking, most active site for aspiring and seasoned medical assistants on the Web. We don't sell anything...we only provide pertinent, expert written information users seek and use.

Over the years we, here at MedicalAssistant.net, the leading website for medical assistants have received many UNSOLICITED emails from happy users, who spontaneously send us comments of appreciation, such as this one from 05.01.2012:

"I just wanted to tell you I found your site. Medical Assistant NET provides clear information that I find helpful."

Christi S....., RN
Nursing Department Manager
Gr.... Pa.... Clinic, LLP
495 SW Ramsey Ave.
Grants Pass, OR 97527
csiedlecki@...........com

Users who type medical assistant are usually looking for a definition. After the so called Panda and the latest Penguin algorithm changes at Google, their search results are a real mess, and I mean truly. For example, when I search for a simple query, such as "medical assistant", I do not mean medical assistant job, medical assistant school, medical assistant training, or a one page blah-blah page to rank the site. Unfortunately, looking at Google, many authority sites that define the search term and offer original informational content for the said key word are virtually gone, even the Bureau of Labor (BLS) page for “medical assistant”, and that is sad.

I have already changed my default search engine to BING as its results are much better. I also like DuckDuckGo. Google’s layout is way too messy for me – cluttered up by dozens of ads top and right, shopping results, images, then predictably all the big name stores, plus eBay and Wiki… Come to think of it, it’s not just the layout, the results are a mess and do not feature sites that deliver usable content for the user.