Medical Assisting (MDAS)

Prepare for a medical assistant role with a focus on diagnostic practices and pharmaceutical procedures, ensuring proficiency in clinical settings.

Delve into clinical laboratory procedures for medical assistants, covering specimen collection, testing, and maintaining lab quality.

This course introduces the language of healthcare. It will cover spelling, pronunciation and definitions of medical terms. Anatomy, physiology, major diseases, signs, symptoms, diagnoses, procedures, medications, treatments, and medical abbreviations will be introduced. The basic structure of medical terms including prefixes, suffixes, and word roots will be presented. Body systems are used as the organizational framework to present terminology.

This course presents an overview of healthcare insurance and is designed to introduce the student to the history and development of payment systems, medical insurance, claims processing and billing issues in healthcare. Insurance terminology, healthcare reform, healthcare access, ethical, legal and compliance issues, regulatory requirements, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the eligibility and reimbursement benefit structure of a variety of insurance plans including Medicare, Medicaid, Managed Care, TRICARE, Commercial plans and Workers’ Compensation will be covered. Course material and discussions will focus on the different types of insurance, federal and state regulations, referrals and prior authorizations. Manual and electronic recordkeeping, coding and billing and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT), Healthcare Common Procedural Coding System (HCPCS), and International Classification of Diseases(ICD)coding systems, will be compared using healthcare claims processing ,medical office accounting practices and billing software.

Acquire expertise in medical insurance and coding, essential for healthcare administration and ensuring accurate billing and record-keeping.

Apply your medical assistant skills in a real-world setting through an externship, gaining practical experience in healthcare environments.