8 Ways to Make a Career in the Medical Field

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Are you interested in following a medical career path? Do you want to get involved in medicine without necessarily becoming a doctor or a nurse? If this sounds like you, don’t worry. There are plenty of options to suit your needs!

Below, you’ll find a list of some of the most common medical field jobs currently available. For each of these, you can choose an in-person education or focus on online healthcare training that can fit into your busy daily life instead.

Study Information Technology

If you are good with computers or other types of technology, you might want to choose medical IT work as your career. By studying information technology and then applying it to the medical field, you can help hospitals and private practices set up diagnostic systems, manage billing programs, and much more.

As more healthcare moves to partial or full telehealth, the demand for skilled and experienced IT workers grows even more.

Learn Accounting

Accounting is another important element of the medical field that many people outside this career path don’t think about. If you are interested in numbers or good at math, medical accounting can be a good solution for your needs.

As a medical accountant, you will balance the books for hospitals and private practices. You may also help in tax filing depending on the needs of your employer.

Train in Management

Management skills are in high demand in a hospital setting. As a healthcare manager, you will be put in charge of various projects and committees throughout the hospital and will need to work to balance the requirements of everyone involved.

Management can be tricky to fit into private or small practice settings, but it may still be needed, depending on where you work.

Learn Billing

All hospitals and private practices bill their clients, so billing specialists are in high demand as well. In this position, you will learn to set up and maintain a billing computer program as well as how to input patient data and set up recurring payments.

Part of this job involves working with patients and insurance companies to file claims and resolve disputes. This factor of the medical billing career requires you to have a strong ability to work with other people. It may be difficult at times to find the right solution for everyone involved in a billing dispute, but the career is a rewarding one.

Study Human Services

If you prefer to interact with patients but do not want to study to become a medical professional, human services can suit your career goals. In this career, you can work with patients to resolve billing problems, share information between doctors and patients, answer questions for new patients, and much more.

A human services career also involves working with your coworkers and other employees of the hospital or private practice office. In this facet of the job, you will help handle disputes between employees and serve as a go-between for employees and doctors. You may also work in scheduling in this position, depending on the way your hospital delegates job roles.

Train in Coding and Data Entry

Transcription work, coding, and data entry are all similar jobs that require slightly different skills. However, no matter which one of these sounds like a good fit for you, keep in mind that you will need to be good at typing and understanding both written and verbal dictation.

In this type of work, you will transcribe notes and recordings from doctors and nurses into patient charts as medical records. You will also need to work with medical recording software to update and maintain patient contact information, figure out scheduling needs, check patients in and out of the hospital or private practice, make notes of medications and diagnoses, and more.

Specialize in Pharmacy Training

If you prefer to get more up-close and personal with medical work than the behind-the-scenes jobs listed so far, you might want to consider pharmacy training. With a two-year Associate degree you can earn online from home, you can gain employment as a pharmacy technician and work alongside the head pharmacist.

In this role, you will distribute and dispense medication according to patient prescriptions with the help of the head pharmacist. You will also answer questions and take payments from patients picking up their medication. You might also need to speak with doctors and specialists to relay any questions or concerns from patients.

Hone Your Administration Skills

Finally, consider working in medical administration if you want to help keep a hospital or private practice office running smoothly and efficiently. Administrators and administrative assistants work to handle scheduling, filing, intake, check-out, payments, billing, coding, and more.

In this position, you will answer telephones and use a computer to input information from both new and existing patients. You will also work with doctors and nurses to answer questions and help resolve patient problems, and you may need to speak with insurance companies on behalf of patients as well.

Final Thoughts

With so many career options to pick from, the hardest part will be choosing your favorite! When you want to work in medicine with an online Associate degree, any of these paths can provide you with the perfect opportunity for growth, experience, and employment. Consider them all to find the right fit for your needs.

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