Skills
Medical Administrative Assistant Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in medical administrative assistants, and how to build and show them.
Medical Administrative Assistants need technical skills such as patient scheduling, insurance eligibility verification, and electronic health records (ehr), plus people skills like customer service and multitasking. They also use tools such as EHR systems such as Epic, Cerner or athenahealth and Practice management and scheduling software.
Technical (hard) skills
- Patient scheduling
- Insurance eligibility verification
- Electronic health records (EHR)
- Medical terminology
- Payment posting and copays
- HIPAA compliance
People (soft) skills
- Customer service
- Multitasking
- Attention to detail
- Calm under pressure
Tools, equipment and technology
- EHR systems such as Epic, Cerner or athenahealth
- Practice management and scheduling software
- Insurance payer portals
- Multi-line phone systems
- Card readers and payment terminals
- Document scanners and fax software
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how medical administrative assistants put their skills to work:
- How to schedule a new patient appointment
- How to verify a patient’s insurance eligibility
- How to check in a patient at the front desk
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Patient scheduling” and “Insurance eligibility verification.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “customer service,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA) near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our medical administrative assistant glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Medical Administrative Assistant training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.