Medical Billing and Coding Careers
See where to find a good medical assistant resume template and what should be included in medical assistant resumes. Learn where the best place is to find sample medical assistant resumes.
Medical assistants have different responsibilities that don’t require the same training as medical billing and coding does. But a lot of the same principles apply.
The purpose of good medical assistant resumes is to get your foot in the door for a face-to-face interview. For that a good medical assistant resume template is very helpful. Think of it as a sales brochure for yourself and a way to summarize your skills, knowledge, experience, and accomplishments.
If you have any training or experience in medical billing or medical coding, be sure to highlight this – even if just a little when filling out your medical assistant resume template.
Even if you aren’t looking for a medical assistant, medical billing, or medical coding job and are just starting a business, having a good resume is still important. In addition to finding a medical assistant resume template, the content of your resume is also very important. Below I’ve gone into some detail on what each section of your resume should include.
I’ve found the best source for a medical assistant resume template available from Microsoft for free. They are available to download as Word documents and are a great starting point.
Completing your Medical Assistant Resume Template – Essential Elements of a Resume should include:
Heading
Name address, contact info – phone number(s) and email address.You should also state your objective – a to-the-point statement of the position you are seeking like “Medical Office Assistant”.
This can also serve as an mini-advertising headline describing what you have to offer like “Certified Medical Assistant” or “Experienced Clinical Medical Assistant”.
Summary
Summarize your experience, areas of expertise, skills, traits, etc. in a concise statement. The summary emphasizes important information from the body of your resume.
Use keywords that match what your target job or client desires. Be sure to use medical terminology applicable to the job here. This is also a good place to high lite your knowledge of industry and regulatory issues.
Employment
Employment History/Experience with name of company, job titles, and time frames which includes the following:
Responsibilities – A paragraph for each job listed and one sentence for earlier jobs is fine. Summarize information from you job description, special duties, special assignments that would interest an prospective employer.
Accomplishments and results – Statements that show your achievements and contributions. Three to six for your most recent job and up to three for earlier jobs is a good rule of thumb.
Education
Show education in reverse chronological order listing. If you graduated recently you may want to include more details and coursework relevant to the specific job. If you don’t have a lot of experience, provide more info here to convey your qualifications.
Training and Certifications – Any training in addition to your education and credentials relevant to the job. If you lack experience, you would want to give a brief narrative here of your training and how its relevant to the job.
Resume Formats
There are two different types of resume formats – Chronological and Functional. The chronological resume is typically the most commonly used but use what best suits your situation. Chronological shows your work experience in reverse chronological order and shows job titles, responsibilities, periods of employment and accomplishments.
The functional resume emphasizes qualifications. This format is good when your experience has been mostly in another field or you have changed employers frequently or don’t have much work experience. Don’t omit work history on functional resume’s as that will probably raise questions but try to make it relevant.
Resume Tips
Having a professional looking medical billing resume says a lot about you. When an employer is going through a stack of resume’s, the one’s that look professional and “clean” are more likely to selected. Here’s some tips for creating a good easy to read resume:
- Try not to use “I”. Begin sentences with action words.
- Use a direct active writing style with short concise statements.
- Use keywords that apply to your next job.
- Don’t use abbreviations the employer wouldn’t be familiar with.
- For emphasis use capital letters, dashes, underlining or bullets.
- Keep the resume to no more than two pages. “Wordy” resumes are a turn off for most people reviewing resume’s.
- Make resume visually appealing with lots of white space.Don’t use fancy fonts, odd paper sizes, or colors.
- Don’t list references – just say “available on request”.
- Customize your resume to emphasize your skills that match the employer’s requirements.
Try to keep the length to one page, two max. Most people reviewing a resume will not go past the first page – especially if it’s too wordy or busy. When submitting a resume for a specific job, I’ve found it very effective to customize my resume for the particular job. Highlighting experience or education/training based on the job description can really increase you chances of getting called for an interview.
As one who employs for my business, I don’t put all the emphasis on experience on a resume. I equally look for traits that shown employee is trustworthiness, dependability, and attention to detail.
Cover Letter
Any time you submit your resume – whether by mail, fax, email – a good cover letter or email introducing you is important. This is a good way to briefly emphasize your results, skills, or experience that make you a good candidate for the job.
Keep it simple and don’t state a specific salary. If the ad request salary requirements, show a range instead of a specific amount. This gives you negotiating room later when discussing salary. Again Microsoft has lots of good free cover letter templates available to download.
Sample Medical Billing Resume
Here’s a sample medical billing resume. I like this format because it’s clean and it conveys the applicants skills, accomplishments, and experience as a medical biller.