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What a medical assistant can do for your practice.

Stephanie Taché is a health policy research fellow in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). She works in a small private practice with an underserved patient population in San Francisco. Susan Chapman is an assistant professor in the UCSF School of Nursing and director of Allied Health Care Workforce Studies at the Center for the Health Professions. Conflicts of interest: none reported. In the interests of cost-effectiveness and efficiency, family physicians are hiring more medical assistants (MAs) to help them manage the increasing complexities of patient care and practice management. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects it to be the fastest growing occupation for the 2002 to 2012 period. MAs’ responsibilities can be tailored to the needs of a practice. They can manage front-office functions and patient flow and handle a wide range of tasks that would otherwise be performed by receptionists, practice managers, nurses and physicians. Many physicians are unsure of what tasks are appropriate to assign to an MA and do not help MAs work to their full abilities and potential. This article should help you to better understand the MA’s role and prepare you to make staffing decisions that will make your practice more productive.