Medical assistant certification in Minnesota

No. There is no Minnesota license for medical assistants. The state's medical practice act allows a physician to hire and supervise a qualified person who might not hold a license at all. It also lets the physician hand off work to that person, passing a job along while still remaining responsible for it.

So the state takes no position on whether you carry a national certificate. What earns a physician's trust in your work is your training and your skills.

A physician who delegates a task to you stays accountable for it. Under Minnesota law, supervising an unlicensed health care worker poorly can lead the Board of Medical Practice to discipline that physician.

This gives the physician a real reason to know what your training covered. Solid training gives them that assurance.

Minnesota's prescription drug law allows a practitioner to have a nurse, medical student or resident administer prescription drugs under direction and supervision. Medical assistants are not named in it.

That same law says a person who passes on a prescriber's order, acting on the prescriber's behalf, is not considered to have prescribed the drug. Passing along an order and prescribing are two different things.

Before you are allowed to x-ray patients in a registered facility, you must pass a national or state exam. If you are a medical assistant without a radiography credential, passing the state exam lets you register as a limited scope x-ray operator. That title means you are allowed to x-ray only certain body parts.

The test has a core portion, and you also pick at least one area of the body:

• Chest
• Arms and legs (extremities)
• Skull and sinus
• Spine
• Feet (podiatry)

You can only x-ray the regions where you passed. CT scans, contrast studies, fluoroscopy and mammography are all off limits for limited scope operators.

1. Submit your exam registration paperwork to the Minnesota Department of Health along with the $25 processing fee.
2. Wait until the department approves your application.
3. Pay the $150 fee to ARRT, the national organization that administers the exam.
4. Sit for the exam within 90 days of being approved. Waiting past that point means your exam window closes.

The numbers below come from national May 2025 wage data.

We list 1,094 medical assistant programs around the country. Among them, 484 are accredited by CAAHEP or ABHES. Accreditation means an outside organization has reviewed the program against its own standards.

Career school programs mostly run 7 to 9 months, with a median of 9 months. An associate degree is another path at some public colleges, and 354 schools nationwide offer that option.

Programs offered online deliver their classes through distance education, though the supervised clinical practice always happens in person. Across the country, 30 programs can be completed by distance education, and 14 of those hold accreditation.