Our Staff - York Podiatrist - Martin Foot and Ankle

Podiatric Medical Assistants

Who is a Podiatric Medical Assistant?
A podiatric medical assistant is a person qualified by academic and practical clinical training to provide services to the patient under the direction of a licensed podiatrist.

Podiatry is that profession of the health sciences which deals with the examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases, conditions, and malfunctions affecting the human foot and its related or governing structures, by employment of medical, surgical, or other means.

Opportunity and Employment Outlook
Podiatry has grown more in the past 20 years than in any previous period. Because of the recent demands on the doctor of podiatric medicine, proficient podiatric medical assistants are a necessity.
This increased need has made the podiatric medical assistants profession one of the most promising in all the associated health care fields.

Many podiatry offices employ three or more podiatric medical assistants.

Scope of Duties
The podiatric medical assistant's duties depend on the podiatrist's type of practice, education and training, volume of patients, and the number of assistants in the practice.

The podiatric medical assistant's duties include: surgical assisting, chair side assisting, and business office procedures.

Some of the specific duties include exposing and developing x-rays, taking and recording patient histories, assisting in biomechanical evaluations and negative casting.

Included in the duties of surgical assisting are sterilization of instruments and equipment, providing the patient with postoperative instructions, and application of surgical redressing

Chair side assistants' duties involve preparing the patient for treatment, padding and strapping, and responding to basic patient needs

Business office tasks encompass answering the telephone, maintaining an appointment schedule, handling insurance forms, maintaining inventory, receiving payment, processing the billing and other bookkeeping procedures
A podiatric medical assistant may be asked to perform any or all of the above duties.

Education, Training, and Qualifications
Although at the present time there are no qualified formal education programs available, continuing education is available for all podiatric medical assistants at local, state, regional and national seminars.

Contact with people and a willingness to help them. ..The ability to do accurate and precise work ... good manual dexterity along with cooperativeness, good judgment, and a pleasant personality are valuable and necessary assets for a successful podiatric medical assistant.

Certification
A podiatric medical assistant can attain the designation of PMAC (Podiatric Medical Assistant Certified). This professional designation is awarded under the auspices of the American Society of Podiatric Medical Assistants.
Enjoying

To be eligible, you must be a member in good standing of the ASPMA and pass a certification examination.