Medical assistant certification in Kentucky

There's no Kentucky statute covering medical assistants and no MA license exists. KRS 311.560 requires a license to practice medicine, and it names no exception for medical assistants.

That means everything you do comes through delegation. Delegation is when a licensed provider passes a task to you to carry out for them. Kentucky lets you perform whatever tasks a licensed provider can lawfully delegate, provided those tasks don't amount to practicing medicine.

Since the state never requires it, every employer sets its own expectations for training and national certification. Still, certification does control access to certain tasks.

A Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure opinion states that physicians may delegate simple and layered skin closures only to non-physicians who are certified or licensed. So holding certification can give you duties that an uncertified assistant simply can't take on. Keep in mind that a board opinion guides physicians on acceptable conduct. It isn't a law, and it isn't a regulation.

That same opinion adds that complex closures, skin flaps and skin grafts can't be delegated to any non-physician, even one who holds certification.

Under Kentucky's nursing rules, a registered nurse or LPN may pass a nursing task along to someone without a license. A medical assistant serving as the nurse's assistant falls into that category, per 201 KAR 20:400.

Two limits in the rules protect both you and the patient:

• The nurse must first teach you the task or verify that you can perform it well before handing it over.
• You can't be given a task that requires you to exercise independent nursing judgment of your own.

Running x-ray equipment in Kentucky requires a state license, per KRS 311B.090. The law exempts physicians and other licensed practitioners, but that exemption doesn't cover medical assistants.

Working in a practitioner's office and taking x-rays means you'll have to hold a Limited X-ray Machine Operator license. With it, you can perform limited diagnostic x-rays under a licensed practitioner's supervision, whether that person is on site or supervising remotely, as 201 KAR 46:081 lays out.

1. Complete a board-approved program after high school, since no license can be issued without one.
2. If you'd like to begin working while you get ready, apply for a temporary license. It lasts as long as 1 year after you finish your program, and renewal isn't possible.
3. Within 1 calendar year of completing your program, pass the Kentucky Limited Scope Exam. ARRT, a national x-ray certification group, administers it.

That 1-year limit is important because the temporary license can't be extended beyond it. Planning to do x-ray work? Before you enroll, find a program that includes it.

Among the 1,094 programs on our site, career schools that report a length take a median of 9 months. The bulk of them run 7 to 9 months, with a handful finishing in 6 months or less.

Of those listed programs, CAAHEP or ABHES accredits 484 of them. These are the 2 organizations that evaluate medical assistant programs. Accreditation can play a role in the national certification exams, so checking it first is a smart move.

Distance programs deliver their classes online, though supervised clinical hours always happen in person. You'll find the schools on our Medical assistant programs in Kentucky page, where you can also send a brief request for information to one accredited program.

As of May 2025, the national median wage for medical assistants came to $45,690 per year, which works out to $21.97 per hour. That's slightly more than nursing assistants, who earned $42,260, and phlebotomists, who earned $45,230.

Should you move into nursing down the road, licensed practical nurses had median earnings of $64,400, while registered nurses took home $97,550. Once you're ready to weigh your options, pick a Kentucky program that holds accreditation and send it the short form to ask about start dates and costs.