Medical Assistants perform both clinical and administrative tasks in healthcare settings. Their duties include taking patients' vital signs, assisting with examinations, administering injections, updating medical records, scheduling appointments, and handling insurance paperwork. They are a crucial link between patients and healthcare providers, ensuring smooth office operations and quality patient care. Medical assistants work in all aspects of the healthcare field, including but not limited to urgent care, specialty clinics, surgical centers, chiropractor offices, physical therapy clinics, and hospitals.
Medical Billing and Coding staff ensure accurate and efficient processing of healthcare claims by translating medical procedures, diagnoses, and services into standardized codes. They specialize in processing insurance claims and maintaining accurate patient records. Their role is essential in keeping healthcare facilities financially stable and compliant with regulations.
This Library Guide offers valuable resources to support your studies, including:
Anatomy and Physiology for Health Professionals (E-Book) by 
Comprehensive Medical Assisting by 
CPT 2024 Professional Edition (E-Book) by 
HCPCS 2024 Level II Professional Edition (E-Book) by 
Short Course in Medical Terminology by How to access online journals, magazines, books, and other resources
To access the online library resources click on the LIRN logo
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Gale Interactive: Human Anatomy database accessible via LIRN
Human anatomy comes to life as you zoom, rotate, and explore interactive 3D models. View related reference articles and search Gale content to learn more.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – The website includes an A-Z index to hundreds of health and safety topics.
HealthCare.gov – This resource has proven tremendously beneficial to current medical assistants, covering every relevant healthcare-related topic. The site is maintained and updated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services in an effort to maintain heightened awareness throughout the healthcare industry.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – In addition to several valuable resources, the website lists numerous grants and apprenticeships for aspiring nurses and medical assistants.
US Department of Labor – Summary and statistics of Medical Assistants from the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
Allied Health Professional Organizations
American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA)
American Medical Technologists (AMT)
National Healthcareer Association (NHA)
MLA is a nonprofit, educational organization with more than 4,000 health sciences information professional members and partners worldwide. MLA provides lifelong educational opportunities, supports a knowledgebase of health information research, and works with a global network of partners to promote the importance of quality information for improved health to the healthcare community and the public.
The Health On the Net Foundation (HON) promotes and guides the deployment of useful and reliable online health information and its appropriate and efficient use.
National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health
The world’s largest biomedical library, NLM maintains and makes available a vast print collection and produces electronic information resources on a wide range of topics that are searched billions of times each year by millions of people around the globe.
National Health Information Center | Health.gov
The National Health Information Center (NHIC) is a health information referral service. NHIC links people to organizations that provide reliable health information.
Demonstration videos from our very own MA department
Learning objects for various MA topics.
The medical assistant spends a lot of time with patients, making soft skills essential to patient interactions and patient satisfaction. In our recent survey of employers in the 2020 Industry Outlook, the soft skill that is most important for medical assistants to possess is professionalism.
