Duties of a Medical Secretary

by Eric Strauss, Demand Media Google
Medical secretaries must keep their offices running efficiently.

Medical secretaries must keep their offices running efficiently.

Keith Brofsky/Photodisc/Getty Images

Medical secretaries are administrative assistants who are specially trained in medical terminology and related subjects such as keeping medical records and tracking health insurance requirements. These secretaries are an important part of medical and dental offices and hospitals, often serving as the first point of contact for patients requesting appointments.

Patient Reception

Medical secretaries are often the first person a patient encounters at an office or hospital. This means medical secretaries must be able to perform receptionist duties such as answering phones and tracking appointments. This may require both good "people skills" and good computer skills.

Patient Records

One of the most important duties of a medical secretary is keeping accurate patient records. This may include not just when a patient visited, but what a doctor or other practitioner diagnosed, and what medicine was prescribed for treatment. Medical records have very specialized terminology, and medical secretaries also must be able to speak the languages of insurance companies for submission of claims, and the terminology of pharmacies for prescription orders. In addition, medical secretaries must always be conscious of, and up to date on, federal privacy regulations and the need to keep patient information confidential.

Correspondence and Dictation

Medical secretaries also must be skilled in clerical jobs such as preparing correspondence from physicians or converting dictation into patient reports. In addition, they may be responsible for maintaining an office's patient website. Similar clerical duties might include preparing notecards when a doctor is giving a speech or typing up and formatting an article a doctor has written for a professional journal.

Specialized Duties

Medical secretaries must be prepared to handle any manner of administrative support requests, and these may vary depending on a particular secretary's employer or job. For instance, a secretary working in a hospital may need to know the computer systems and paperwork involved in discharging patients. Or, a secretary in a dental office may need to know different anatomical terminology from one working in a psychiatric office, even though basic receptionist duties may otherwise be the same.

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