Medical Assistants in the office

[SHELLYBELLYRN]

This is probably going to open a can of worms.............but how do you all feel about replacing nurses in the office setting with Medical Assistants? How (if at all) do you feel it affects patient care?

Do any of the MA's in your offices refer to themselves as "nurses"? Have you had any problems with the knowledge base of the MA's? How are they with patient education?

May be just my situation, but I have run across some significant problems in this area................and not sure how to address it...........or even if I can address it.

[am27]

Yikes. You sound like such a pleasant Polly! Most clinics are not privately-run these days therefore a physician does not have much say about staff. Perhaps a more effective route would have been talking to the clinic supervisor or manager. Any workplace dislikes dealing with someone obviously on a power trip. Prayers to you and whomever encounters you whether professionally or not 😊😊

Have a life, thank you, and much of it was spent informing MAs in physician offices that they are NOT RNs, they CANNOT speak on the physician's behalf, and if he's too cheap to employ an RN, then they WILL need to let him know that I need to talk to him.

[am27]

I'm just repeating myself AGAIN: nobody is saying that medical assistants speak on anyone's behalf. They are relaying messages that are already typed/dictated and electronically transcribed. Nothing is interpreted in any way by a medical assistant. Idk what is so hard to comprehend. You annoy staff by demanding to talk to a nurse if it isn't necessary in the case of RELAYING INFORMATION. I don't even care if I get flagged for this post, but DUHHHHHHHHHH people!!!!!!!!

[Jensmom7, BSN, RN]

Yikes. You sound like such a pleasant Polly! Most clinics are not privately-run these days therefore a physician does not have much say about staff. Perhaps a more effective route would have been talking to the clinic supervisor or manager. Any workplace dislikes dealing with someone obviously on a power trip. Prayers to you and whomever encounters you whether professionally or not 😊😊

No, I'm a professional who never appreciated non-nurses passing themselves off as RNs. When they identified themselves as MAs, the conversations proceeded without issues, and some of them were actually very helpful.

Also, don't know where you're from, but around here there are quite a few private practices.

Thankfully, in Hospice, don't really run into that problem very often, as most of the attendings have given me their cell numbers, for the rare times I need to discuss symptom management.

And please don't waste your time praying over me. I'm secure in my belief system, and I'm sure your time would be better spent asking God for assistance in developing some maturity and loosening that chip from your shoulder.

[nursel56]

Medical assistants are responsible for "clinical messaging" aka relaying messages back and forth between provider and patient!!! That's all! There's nothing more to it so why make mountains out of molehills?! Let it go, geez!

If the doctor told the MA to tell the patient her third elevated blood glucose indicated she had pre-diabetes that would be different from the MA coming up with that on her own.

My experience is that when abnormal results of any kind are relayed by someone the doctor has authorized to divulge, the patient in many cases freaks out and asks a lot of questions the provider needs to answer.

If it's someone who has a chronic problem and are thoroughly familiar with the drill, they may appreciate the information and the "heads-up" sooner than they would waiting for the provider to call them back.

The "telephone triage" or anything approaching assessment (which would include speculating about what results might mean) is prohibited most of the time, but I haven't checked all 50 states and territories.

The tone of your responses most likely is a reverberation of your first post here, in which you came in with "guns blazing" as they say.

You personalized what you were reading about MAs and really overstated the amount of hostility most of us feel toward MAs. Many Advanced Practice Nurses work with MAs every day and rightfully sing their praises. It's really the person, not the title.

[icuRNmaggie, BSN, RN]

So glad you understand the distinction. Nursing is a profession that requires extensive education and legal qualification.

Medical office assisting is a vocation that may or may not require any vocational training and no legal qualification.

A medical office assistant who claims to triage, assess , or provide patient education is practicing nursing without a license and that is board reportable.

[ixchel]

That facepalm may have left a bruise.

[traumaRUs, MSN, APRN]

Closed for review