Accredited medical assistant programs

The Certified Medical Assistant credential, called the CMA (AAMA), comes from the American Association of Medical Assistants. Anyone who finishes a medical assisting program accredited by CAAHEP or ABHES can take the exam.

There's no need to hold off until school is completely over. Once your classroom coursework is finished, you can sign up for the exam, even while the practicum is still underway. A practicum gives you supervised, hands-on experience in an actual clinic, and every accredited program builds one in, in an outpatient setting such as a doctor's office.

Once you finish, you still count as a recent graduate provided your application goes in within 12 months of finishing.

Our listings include 310 medical assistant programs accredited by CAAHEP. CAAHEP looks at programs one by one instead of reviewing an entire school, so a college may run an accredited medical assistant program while a different body reviews its other courses.

The day-to-day accreditation work for medical assisting programs falls to MAERB, a CAAHEP committee. Programs have to meet a defined set of standards, such as:

• A practicum completed before graduation, with supervision and at least 160 contact hours spent in a healthcare setting
• Results published on the program's website: certification exam results, plus figures showing how many students stay in the program, find jobs, or both
• A full review that includes an on-site visit at least once every 10 years

In many health fields, finishing a CAAHEP-accredited program is required for certification or licensure.

ABHES is an independent accrediting agency, and it has held recognition from the U.S. Secretary of Education going back to 1969. Our listings include 181 medical assistant programs at schools that hold ABHES accreditation.

Finishing an ABHES-accredited medical assisting program makes you eligible for the CMA (AAMA) exam, the same as a CAAHEP graduate. Either one is enough, so you don't need to hunt for a program with both.

There isn't one program that's best for every person, but CAAHEP programs publish outcomes that make fair comparisons possible. Each one has to post its certification exam results on its website, along with how many students stay in the program, find jobs, or both, so you can compare them side by side before you apply.

This 2023-24 school data can help you compare costs and completion times. The two prices cover different things: the career-school figure includes tuition, fees, and books for the whole program, while the public-college figure covers in-district tuition and fees for one full-time year.

Earnings matter as well. As of May 2025, medical assistants earned a median of $45,690 per year, which works out to $21.97 per hour.

It can help to see how that wage sits next to similar roles. Nursing assistants earn about the same, with a median of $42,260, and phlebotomists earn $45,230. For comparison, median annual pay was $64,400 for licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses and $97,550 for registered nurses.