Medical Assistant Training is a Reliable Path to Earnings

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In the past couple of days, there have been some very interesting stories about how people got creative with strategies for earning money.  Consider this story of a college student who made a banner with a QR code leading to his Bitcoin wallet and held it up in front of the TV cameras covering a college sports event.  Within hours, people had electronically deposited more than $22,000 in Bitcoins (a new online currency) into his account.  Or look at this wild tale of a good samaritan who wanted to spread some holiday cheer by launching a thousand one-dollar bills from the top balcony of a large shopping mall, making it “snow money” onto surprised shoppers below. Well, you can either come up with a brilliant scheme like the Bitcoin banner fellow or wait around for another holiday angel to make it literally rain money (incidentally, the holiday angel was arrested for his efforts).  Or, you can do something much more likely to yield financial benefits and study medical assistant training with us here at the Allen School.  Once you’ve earned your certified nurse assistant certificate, you’ll be able to earn a solid salary all year round and pretty much anywhere you’d like to work and live. Article updated June 4, 2024

Giving Thanks for Health Care Schools

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Taking the opportunity this Thanksgiving to reflect on all the many ways in which we’re blessed as Americans, this blogger would like to focus specific gratitude to you, Allen School students. Following a career in the service of others and the delivery of compassionate care is a selfless life path.  Health care schools like Allen School are places where people with a true passion for easing the suffering of their fellow man go to learn how to be exceptional care givers.  It takes a special kind of person to select this field of work.  I for one am exceptionally thankful for all the medical assistants,  nursing assistants, doctors, nurses and paramedics who take care of all of us, often in the times of our most acute need. Happy Thanksgiving to you all Allen School students, faculty and staff.  Wishing everyone peace, joy and a turkey-induced food coma!

Argument # 54 in Favor of Online Medical Billing School

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Winter Storm

What You Avoid if you Study Medical Billing Classes Online

Summer’s tropical breezes are becoming a distant memory.  The comfortable Autumn days of 60 degree weather are now giving way to Winter’s icy grip.  Single digit wind chill factors and frozen precipitation are making their return to the Northeast as well as across the nation’s mid-section.  For students of all stripes, getting to and from classes now involves serious outfitting, complete with multiple layers of clothing, bulky outerwear and easy-to-lose hats, scarves and gloves. But if you’re studying medical billing classes online, you’ll be laughing over a cup of hot cocoa, while you watch the morning weather and traffic reports.  Even as we speak, a Thanksgiving storm front is bearing down on the entire East Coast.  For students who live on campuses far from home, the prospects for difficult travels homeward for the holiday must surely be a cause for anxiety.  Wouldn’t it be better to have enrolled in online medical billing classes with the Allen School?  You could be hunkered down in the comfort of your own home, enjoying the aromas of Thanksgiving meal preparations, watching the wind blow the frozen rain sideways. This is argument #54 in the long list of arguments in favor of online medical billing and coding classes with the Allen School.

5 Resume Mistakes for a Medical Billing Specialist to Avoid

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Yes, we’ve published this type of post before.  But this latest article from the job board folks over at Monster.com has included some “don’ts” that are designed to address the most up-to-date best practices for resume writing. If you’re close to completing your online courses for medical billing and coding, you’re probably thinking ahead about how you’ll take your new medical billing certification and land a job with it.   The resume is the first shot to fire in the long battle for a good job.  Some of the mistakes in the linked article are regularly featured on these kinds of lists.  Things like spelling errors and staying true to who you are.  These are always true.  But as the nature of job hunting has changed by the recent explosion of hiring automation software, a new mistake has emerged among eager applicants.  The tendency to “stuff” keywords into your resume in order to get past the robot resume screening technology is understandable; but it is a mistake.  Another big no-no is failing to include a demonstration of the results you may have produced at earlier jobs (for those medical billing specialists who’ve held a few positions since graduation). Here’s a link to the article from Monster.  Read it because it has some fresh information along with some tried and true information too.  Good luck out there in the job hunt!

What Medical Assistants Need to Know about the 2013 Flu Shot

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Medical Assistant Flu ShotA big part of the job when you’re a medical assistant or a nursing assistant is knowing about the latest and most up to date information relevant to public health and safety.  With the onset of flu season fast upon us, patients will be coming forth with the same questions they do every year about the flu shot.  Questions such as:
  •     What sort of flu season is expected this year?
  •     Will new strains of flu circulate this season?
  •     When will flu activity begin and when will it peak?
  •     What should I do to prepare for this flu season?
  •     Where can I get a flu vaccine?
  •     How much vaccine will be available during 2013-2014?
  •     What kind of vaccines will be available in the United States for 2013-2014?
  •     What flu viruses does this season’s vaccine protect against?
  •     How effective is the flu vaccine?
  •     How long does a flu vaccine protect me from getting the flu?
  •     Will this season’s vaccine be a good match for circulating viruses?
Luckily, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has the answers to all these questions and many more you’re likely to encounter during the course of your career as a medical office assistant or certified nursing assistant.  Read up on it and be prepared to battle influenza this Winter!

Keeping Certified Nurse Assistants Employed

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Adulterated Foods Keep certified nurse assistants in steady workLong time readers of the Allen School Blog know that I can never resist sharing stories about particularly, egregiously, un-apologetically unhealthy foods.  Especially the fast food variety of heavily processed foodstuffs like this one, and these. Now don’t assume I am a saint or some kind of wheat germ swilling health food freak.  I enjoy an occasional indulgence in such grotesquery as White Castles, Doritos Locos Tacos, and other fun stuff.  But if one stops and thinks about it, consuming this kind of food on a regular basis is pretty unhealthy.   Remember the KFC Double Down sandwich, or the (actually lethal) Quadruple Bypass Burger at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas? Well, today’s irresistible junk food story comes in the form of a “naked” picture of a frozen, uncooked McDonald’s McRib sandwich.   I will admit to having burned through a number of these in my lifetime (although not lately).  Looks yummy, no? So what’s the point?  As always, when I get to waxing poetic about the adulterated nature of the American diet, I am reminded of the numerous ailments and maladies poor diet can cause.  As a blogger for a medical education institution, I cannot help but consider the extent to which junk food keeps certified nurse assistants (and the rest of the medical industry) busy with steady work.

Medical Billing Specialist – A Job NOT Headed for Extinction

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Medical billing specialists are not DinosaursIts always heartening to learn that the job field you’re in (or working towards entering) is a stable and secure one.  Seems like daily you can read articles in the news about jobs being outsourced to lower cost labor markets or being rendered obsolete by robotics/automation.  That’s why I make it a regular feature of the Allen School Blog to find the opposite kinds of articles – those illustrating the health of the career market for medical billing specialist jobs – and share them with the readers here. The latest such piece of positive material comes to us via Andrea Duchon at Yahoo!   In her piece entitled “5 Jobs Nearing Extinction – And What’s Taking Their Place“, Duchon serves up 5 time-tested occupations that are going the way of the proverbial dinosaur. That is, 5 jobs that are soon to be extinct.  She then explains why each job listed is fading away.  In nearly all cases, there is a more 21st century equivalent to the disappearing job.  One that requires updated skills and perspectives from the industry it inhabits. You’ll be glad to know that while computer technology is rendering filing clerks obsolete, the area of Medical Records and Health Information Technician is expected to grow more than 21% in the decade between 2010 and 2020.  So, if you’re studying to become a medical billing specialist with Allen School, you’re golden!  Carry On!

Watch Live: Wired’s Data|Life Conference

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Whether you’re studying medical assistant training, certified nurse assistant courses or medical billing programs at Allen School, you’re about to enter into an exciting industry.  The healthcare industry is experiencing some of the most innovation and technological advancements of any industry today.  There’s no better time to be involved in this thrilling field.  Want to be convinced?  Click here to live stream Wired magazine’s Data|Life Conference November 5 and 6 from New York City. Learn about the biggest trends in health care, how the face of medicine changing as data becomes more widely available and what we can all do to live longer.  Dozens of featured speakers across two days will share some very exciting, cutting edge information from the front lines of the healthcare field.  I am especially interested to hear from Rushika Fernandopulle, MD, CEO, Iora Health who has been doing some groundbreaking work at re-imagining how healthcare operates as an industry.  Read about his amazing idea here.

Medical Billing Job Opportunities

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Questions during a medical billing job interviewSo you’ve completed your certification in medical billing with the Allen School.  You’ve drafted and perfected the perfect résumé and sent it to positions you’d be interested in landing.  You’ve earned an interview with a great potential employer and you’ve made a great showing with the hiring manager, answering all the questions with well-conceived replies.  It has all gone very well.  The end of the interview is in sight.  The hiring manager asks you the following standard interview question: “Do you have any questions for me about the company or the position?” STOP!  THINK!  This is a critical juncture at which many candidates unfortunately torpedo their chances at being selected.  While you may think that this is your opportunity to find out some very important things about the position – things like “how much does the position pay?” or ” Do you perform background checks?”- these are two questions that, while relevant to you, may derail all your efforts.   Want to know why these seemingly innocuous questions should be avoided?  Want to learn how and why to avoid these questions and what would be some better questions to ask?  Click here to read “Six Questions Never to Ask During a Job Interview” for the details on why these simple queries will reflect negatively and what questions to ask to help improve your chances of landing a job as a medical billing specialist.

Medical Assistant Heal Thy… Instructor?

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There’s nothing quite like hands-on instruction when it comes to learning things.  Whether it be medical assisting training or learning to fly a commercial airliner, going through the physical motions of performing key tasks is always a more visceral instruction than simply reading about theory from a book. This is why Allen School instructors take advantage of every opportunity to provide a hands-on learning experience to their medical assisting classes.  Just like the aviation schools use flight simulators to avoid actual crashes while teaching pilots, the Allen School, for example, uses so called “CPR manikins” for students to simulate chest compressions without accidentally breaking real live ribs. One medical assisting school found its students in the position of having to perform real life, hands on life saving procedures recently when an instructor at  the Uintah Basin Applied Technology school in Utah collapsed with heart failure.  Read the incredible story of how these quick thinking students used the training they were receiving to resuscitate the teacher and save her life. Let’s hope that this really, really hands-on methodology for teaching CPR is not adopted by any of the faculty here at the Allen School.  But if it were to happen, we’re certain Allen School medical assisting trainees would rise to the occasion just as well as their Utah counterparts.  Our hats are off to those medical assisting students and their quick thinking!