How much did you or would you pay for a Medical Assistant Certification?

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I want to take a medical assistant course and these are the links to the two options that I was looking at. First I would like to ask Which program sounds better because there is a great price difference between the two. Which one would you take. I dont want to be paying more for the same thing.

Here are the links:

http://www.brookdalecc.edu/PDFFiles/OBCD/Spring%202011%20Healthcare%20Training%20Brochure.pdf you have to go to pg 12

http://www.mcvsd.org/info/adult_catalog/mcvsd_eb_10-11.pdf you have to go to pg 14 for this one

I hope you guys can help me!

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Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.

Maybe you'll find more help here, since this site is for medical assistants:

Medical Assistant Web Forum | Fourm for Medical Assistants

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Maybe you'll find more help here, since this site is for medical assistants:

Medical Assistant Web Forum | Fourm for Medical Assistants

Thanks so much, I was looking for something like this:)

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For the program I will be taking it's going to be 1500

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Specializes in Cardiac, ER.

Maybe it depends on where you live,..I'm in the Midwest and there is no requirement for any type of certification. I worked as a MA before I became an RN. I had 100% on the job training. I worked for a wonderful Family Practice doc who liked to teach. Looking back I did a lot of things I was way under qualified to do, many things I'm not allowed to do as an RN,..however it was a great learning experience and I used my money to go to nursing school and triple my salary.

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Specializes in Home Health Aide.

Wow, some of you really lucked out! I live in Kansas. I am paying 20K for a 13 month program. Im not very impressed though. I will be furthuring my education at a university for my RN next year when I get out of the program I am in now. I am going through Heritage College, name can be misleading as it's a vo-tec school not a college. I guess it depends on where you are living and where you are taking your classes and what program you are in. At Heritage they don't have just an MA program, it's called x-ray medical technician (XMT). You have to be licenses now in Kansas to do MA work, we can do x-ray in chiropractors offices and doctor offices but we can not do them in hospitals. Generally people are looking for rad tecs to do the x-ray positions not xmt's. For the xray portion of the program, which most people enter into the program to do x-rays. I wanted the MA but I wasn't aware of exactly what an MA does when I started school. That is why I will be furthuring my education. You should consider the LPN over the MA, they have more responsibility (well at least here in KS) and are able to work at a wider variety of locations (MA's can only work in clinics not nursing homes or hospitals). I hope this helps.

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wow, some of you really lucked out! i live in kansas. i am paying 20k for a 13 month program. im not very impressed though. i will be furthuring my education at a university for my rn next year when i get out of the program i am in now. i am going through heritage college, name can be misleading as it's a vo-tec school not a college. i guess it depends on where you are living and where you are taking your classes and what program you are in. at heritage they don't have just an ma program, it's called x-ray medical technician (xmt). you have to be licenses now in kansas to do ma work, we can do x-ray in chiropractors offices and doctor offices but we can not do them in hospitals. generally people are looking for rad tecs to do the x-ray positions not xmt's. for the xray portion of the program, which most people enter into the program to do x-rays. i wanted the ma but i wasn't aware of exactly what an ma does when i started school. that is why i will be furthuring my education. you should consider the lpn over the ma, they have more responsibility (well at least here in ks) and are able to work at a wider variety of locations (ma's can only work in clinics not nursing homes or hospitals). i hope this helps.

wow! 20k is very disproportionate from what you can make as a ma. i don't think i would pay much more than 2k. you have to look at what the pay of the field you are going into is. my adn cost me only 4k!

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I would not pay much for a MA program, for many reasons, but primarily because MAs don't make that much money :( in California, and other places I would hope there are many community college programs, adult school options, and even a government run program called ROP. All of these options are free, or just about free. There were also plenty of schools where you could pay 8 or 10 grand, and I could never understand why people would do this.... then some years later my step mother got to teaching at one of the large corporate MA schools (the kind that costs thousands) come to find out many of these students in the pay programs were drop out from other free vocational programs... I have since gone on to get my RN licence and work for some time now, but I implore you, do not pay thousands of dollars for MA school, its a scam. Also, do not think that being an MA somehow prepares you to be a nurse, the jobs are apples and oranges.... if you are trying to gain hospital experience, look into becoming a CNA, it would be a lot more applicable.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

In all of my positions as an RN, the MA's that I worked with have never ever required certification. Or any type of pre-employment training, for that matter. In fact, most employers in my experience prefer to train their own MA's.

I have always felt sorry for the MA's who post here who have succumbed to the commerical schools' advertisements. If they had searched for forums specific to Medical Assisting (rather than nursing) prior to signing on to these highly-hyped programs and expensive programs, they might have saved themselves a ton of $$.

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Specializes in maternal child, public/community health.
In all of my positions as an RN, the MA's that I worked with have never ever required certification. Or any type of pre-employment training, for that matter. In fact, most employers in my experience prefer to train their own MA's.

I have always felt sorry for the MA's who post here who have succumbed to the commerical schools' advertisements. If they had searched for forums specific to Medical Assisting (rather than nursing) prior to signing on to these highly-hyped programs and expensive programs, they might have saved themselves a ton of $$.

These programs absolutely take advantage of people who do not know better. One "college" where I live charges $30K for the MA program. Even if a student is able to complete the program (many don't), they will never be able to pay off that debt.

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I didn't pay for it.

What city are you in. Contact your local red cross, get your CPR certification, and walk into any doc-in-the-box, urgent care, or abortion clinic and apply for a job. One of them will hire you (entry level with minimum wage of course, but just take the experiance and move on).

I worked as a medical assistant for an abortion clinic. I had prior "medical background" from working as a phlebotomist at a plasma center and they felt I was well qualified to be trained as a MA.

That would be a stepping stone for you too. Check out local bloodbanks and plasma centers if you have any in your city. They always do entry level hiring and training. Once you learn phlebotomy branch out and apply for medical assistant jobs.

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I probably wouldn't pay one red cent since the job market for MAs in my area is non-existent.

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