Medical assistant certification in New Hampshire

No New Hampshire law is written specifically for medical assistants, and no state board gives them a license. The Medical Practice Act says that people without a license may not give diagnoses, provide treatment, do surgery or write prescriptions.

The act also lists groups it does not cover, including nurses, midwives with certification, and emergency medical services workers. Medical assistants are not mentioned there.

Your tasks come from the licensed doctor or nurse who hands them to you, under the rules that apply to them. Delegating means a licensed person hands a particular task over for someone else to complete. The Board of Medicine's rules treat delegation as part of practicing medicine, yet they set out no detailed standards for handing tasks to medical assistants.

Nurses may delegate as well. The Nurse Practice Act lets a registered nurse or licensed practical nurse hand off specific nursing tasks only in the ways the Board of Nursing's rules permit.

That's why doctors pay close attention to what you do. A physician can face Board of Medicine discipline for employing or allowing an unlicensed person to practice in the physician's office.

Starting July 31, 2018, New Hampshire requires a state license for anyone who performs medical imaging on people. A limited x-ray is a simple, basic image taken by someone trained for a small, defined range of imaging work. If you want to take x-rays as a medical assistant, you need the limited x-ray machine operator license first.

1. Reach at least 18 years of age.
2. Hold a high school diploma or GED.
3. Finish a limited x-ray course the state has approved.
4. Pass an approved exam, such as the ARRT limited x-ray exam.
5. File your paperwork with the Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, including your course completion certificate.

With this license, a licensed practitioner or licensed radiographer must directly supervise your work. CT, fluoroscopy, MRI, mammography, sonography, mobile imaging and contrast studies are all off limits.

Because the state doesn't license medical assistants, a good training program is how you learn the job. Accreditation means an independent organization has checked the program and given its approval. Nationwide, our list includes 1,094 medical assistant programs, and CAAHEP or ABHES accredits 484 of them.

A number of programs deliver their classes through distance education. An externship is hands-on training under supervision in a real clinic, and it always happens in person, even when the program is online. Of the programs we list, 30 offer classes entirely through distance education, and 14 of those are accredited.

Of the 378 career schools reporting program length, the median is 9 months. Programs range from 2 months at the shortest to 32 at the longest.

Among career schools that quote a single price for the entire program, the median cost of tuition, fees and books comes to $17,257. At the public colleges in our data, median in-district tuition and fees for a year of full-time study were $4,346. Of the programs listed, 1,049 are offered by schools participating in federal student aid.

In May 2025, the median yearly pay for medical assistants was $45,690, or $21.97 an hour.

Many career-school programs take around 9 months, so you could be working within a year. Find an accredited program on our New Hampshire programs page and request information from that school today.