Medical Assistant Instructor Career Overview

Medical assistant instructors are usually veteran medical assistants who have worked in the field for years. Medical doctors and nurses also work as medical assistant instructors in some colleges and hospitals.

Job description and Responsibilities

Job description and responsibility of a medical assistant instructor ranges from preparing course plans and materials to delivering the course and asses outcome and report the same to college administration. The exact job description actually varies from institution to institution but the most common duties of a medical assistant instructor include the following:

  • Preparing class room or online course plans and materials
  • Plan daily lessons
  • Delivering courses
  • Prepare and administer examination (this can be classroom or clinical or lab exam)
  • Assist with on-going review and development of curricula in the department and make suggestions.
  • Complete some administrative duties and attend school’s events and meetings
  • Monitoring progress/attendance
  • Advising students
  • Recording grades and submitting reports

How to Become Medical Assistant Instructor

If you want to become medical assistant instructor, there are certain education and work experience requirements you must fulfill.

Education Requirements

Education requirements may vary from a company that requires only certificate of completion in medical assistant field to bachelor degree. But in general medical assistant instructors are expected to have at least an associate degree in medical assisting and 3 years relevant experience. Some employers require that the instructors to be certified by American Medical Technologists (AMT) or American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA) with RMA or CMA credential respectively. In today’s medical assistant job market, most new grads are certified. You should also expect that certification to become a mandatory requirement for medical assistant instructor job in the near feature.

Experience Requirements

Most employers require a minimum of 3 to 5 years work experience in medical assisting within the last 10 years. If you have any kind of teaching experience, that will help a lot. If you can back up your teaching experience with a certificate, you can be sure that you will be shortlisted for interview.

Other related experiences, skills and educations qualifications that may give you an edge when applying for medical assistant instructor job are:

  • Strong interpersonal skills that may include effective verbal and written communication skills.
  • If you are bilingual or more, that will also come in handy sometimes
  • Being familiar with computer applications
  • Experience in medical billing and insurance, medical terminology, coding ICD-9, CPT
  • Certification in CPR, First Aide (instructor certification is even better)

Job opportunities

The main employers of medical assistant instructors are private career colleges and community colleges. Well recognized big colleges and universities also hire medical assistant instructors. Hospitals and other healthcare institutions that provide medical assistant training are also other possible employers.

Salary and Benefits

The average salary for medical assistant instructor is $34,000(per year) for a fresher and up to $59000 (per year) for more experienced instructors. Most instructors usually get paid annual salary; however, it’s also possible to find some job opportunities with hourly pay. If the placement is permanent, you can expect to get additional benefits.