medical assistant

can anyone give me nay info about an on line school called st.augustine school of medical assistants and health science?i'm looking to get into the medical assistant field and coding and billing.need to do at home and online.can anyone help?i live close to phoenix,az. in chandler,az. thank you.

 

I would avoid it.... this line stands out

St. Augustine Educational Services, Inc.- BVI
Since this is a distance education program all registrations are final and fees non-refundable. Students are recommended to check with potential employers and/or government agencies to assure our program and accreditions will meet their needs. We provide a private distance education service and not affiliated with any governmental agency.

Education direct has a number of vocational programs in the medical/allied health field so does PCDI both are relativly inexpensive

http://www.educationdirect.com/
http://www.pcdi.edu

I dealy try to go with a proffesional accredited program, or RA/NA

A good source for allied health proffesionaly accredited programs is http://www.caahep.org/caahep/ or http://www.abhes.org/areasofstudytemp.asp these only lists accredited programs by a few associations but it may be a good start.

Good luck
Jeremy

 

schools

are there any god online schools to choose from?you mentioned pcdi and direct learning.are these good?really need help.never done this before.

 

The State of Florida has been trying to shut down St Augustine for some time. They are not licensed in Florida which is required.

 

st.augustine school

how did you find out about this school?if i remember right they have a georgia address.is this the same school?

 

The Peachtree address showed up about a year ago. It's probably a Mailboxes Etc. or something. They are still in Florida though too.

 

SCHOOLS

khan,i thank you for your help.how did you find out about this stuff?i'm looking for an online school for billing and coding.how do i know if they are the real deal or not?you know of any good ones?

 

Mary,

Their web site has every indication of being a scam rather than a school. The accreditors they mention don't seem to exist, they list no physical address, name of the school is deceptively similar to a legitimate brick-and-mortar school in Florida, and there are grammatical and spelling errors on some pages of their site.

One aspect of their instruction sounds scary. They claim to teach phlebotomy by "virtual lab". Think about it, would you want your blood drawn by someone who learned by watching a streaming video with absolutely no supervised clinical instruction? Beware of any "school" that claims to able to teach invasive procedures with no clinical component.

Kit

 

school

thank you Kit for the info.you have any idea on a good school on line for medical coding and billing?

 

Sure, for vocational courses there's always Thomson Education Direct and PCDI. Thomson, through their Delmar Learning division, publishes many of the textbooks that are used for community college courses in these fields. PCDI is accredited by DETC. (Distance Education Training Council) Thomson is accredited by DETC and ACE (American Council on Education), additionally their vocational programs are regionally accredited. Both schools are inexpensive.

Here are some links so you can check out their programs:

Thomson Education Direct's Medical Insurance program (billing and coding):

http://www.educationdirect.com/medic/


PCDI's Medical Billing program (billing and coding):

http://www.pcdi-homestudy.com/courses/mc/



Kit

 

Medical coding

For medical coding and milling the professional association is American Health Information Management Association they offer a professional certification in the field also. A list of distance learning programs is on their web site if you search under education.

In addition they offer a coding basic program which is ACE evaluated for a decent number of credit hours. With four clusters at 500 dollars each it is affordable and worth close to 20 credit hours (number off the top of my head I forget the exact amount) It starts every month allowing for quick entry also.

http://campus.ahima.org/campus/course_info/CB/index.html

Hope that helps,
Jeremy

 

Mary,

I just completed my diploma program in Med Billing/Coding via PCDI. I found the coursework to be extremely fullfilling, challenging and interesting. As previously posted, there is PCDI and Education Direct which offer this course inexpensively.

 

Yeah this is a great school for medical assistant course

 

Why????????????

 

St Augustine School Of Medical Assistants

because this school provide better education at reasonable price

 

I'll just put it out there: You could join the Navy as a hospital corpsman and then after completing the Hospital Corps School curriculum you may then schedule an exam with American Medical Technologists and become a Registered Medical Assistant (RMA) or look into taking the test to become a Certified Medical Assistant (CMA). Eventually it would seriously benefit you and your career to seek one of these two credentials in addition to formal education as the industry is trending toward that being a requirement to practice. Other benefits to the Hospital Corpsman route is 1) the education is free! 2) The Navy will pay for your certifications while serving provided you make the moves independently; 3) You will gain at least 5 years of working experience whl.p.ich will substantially up your odds at landing a job in an already saturated allied health field and 4) All of the benefits attached to serving which I will not get into here. I am not a recruiter, just simply a person with a firsthand account and testimonial praising the profound benefits derived through service. Everything you see in my signature line was made possible by signing on the dotted line and becoming one of a vast number of Hospital Corpsmen.

The military is not for everyone, and it comes with profound moments of sacrifice... but I have no regrets for the 5 years that has ultimately shaped me into the health care professional that I am today. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. I am finishing up my active duty contract in a couple of months and I would be happy to offer you my perspectives on serving and some of the ins-and-outs of navigating higher education while in the Navy.

 

How is it a "better education"? Are you the owner of the school? These kind of statements are meaningless and sound like you are simply advertising the school. Is the school accredited? Can one apply for national certification? Does the school arrange for clinical rotations? What kind of hands on training does a student receive? I mean really, why not buy a used medical assistant textbook on amazon.com? My school is the best because I said it is the best! Does this forum look like we are a bunch of 7 year olds?

 

The same dude put a similar post on the City-Data forum. I think the person is just trying to advertise the school. It's not accredited nor will give you any credentials to sit for an exam. If I were the mod I would lock this thread. If not the guy will just put more super vague posts bumping it. Just my two cents.

 

I'm guessing that we have not even one 7 year old member. And I'm sure that I agree with Delta when he asks why this might be considered the best program. I'm glad that the member has had a good experience with this school. After all, it is DETC accredited (and I think that the vocational stuff is what they do best) but if you're going to say that one school is "better" than another than you really should provide some evidence that extends beyond your own personal experience.

Beyond that I'd only say three things and this is related to the PCDI website.
1) When you link to PCDI through Google the first page that comes up requires you to register before getting any information. This is a big turn off to me because I know that if I'm just a curious browser and I register then I'm going to be getting emails from PCDI for the rest of my life.
2) When you link to a specific learning program (such as medical assisting) they tell you with bullet points what you will learn but there's no easy access to the actual courses, and their contents. Before I even consider signing in to a program I want to know EXACTLY what is in front of me.
3) I saw no easy access to costs. For me this is a HUGE red flag.

So, let's summarize. This is a school that restricts information about their programs until they collect all your personal information or, at least they make it hard to figure it all out (I confess that I didn't bother to spend the time). PCDI owns Ashworth. I don't know if that's saying something good or bad, I just believe it's a fact to take into consideration.

Beyond that I'd say that you might want to look at Penn Foster.

Programs and Degrees-View all of Penn Foster

They also have a medical assistant program and a coding program, etc. They also have a website whose first page asks you to register, etc. I'm just offering it as a possible alternative. I have no way of knowing if one is better than the other. When you talk to them please ask about post-grad hiring rates. Get it in writing. In the end, that's your bottom line.