Medical assistant certification in South Dakota

No. South Dakota once registered medical assistants, but each part of that old state law chapter, SDCL 36-9B, is now shown as repealed. The shift came through 2021 House Bill 1004, which took away the registration rule.

So you do not have a state form to file or a state fee to pay.

According to the South Dakota Board of Nursing, an RN can pass nursing duties to medical assistants and oversee that work. This applies in outpatient settings such as clinics and offices.

For those tasks, the board looks for certification from 1 of 5 national organizations: AAMA, AMT, NHA, NCCT or AMCA. The board also wants proof that you have shown you can perform the task well. The board says these guidelines are guidance, not law.

The duties line up with national medical assisting standards. They do not include IV therapy, which is giving fluids or medicine through a vein. A supervising nurse must be easy to contact, in person or electronically.

Certification counts most for injections. Under a board rule, ARSD 20:48:04.01:10, a licensed nurse may delegate certain injections to you. That means the nurse hands you the task but stays responsible for it. These can include injections into the skin, just below it, and into muscle, along with figuring the dose.

For these duties, you must hold current national certification approved by the board, and the nurse may delegate them only in a stable nursing situation. If you are not certified, nurses cannot pass these injections to you, since injections are delegable only within listed exceptions. Giving medicine through a vein is never something nurses can delegate.

Because certification is what lets nurses hand you injections, start with an accredited program that prepares you for a national exam. Find one on the South Dakota programs page and request information from that school.

South Dakota does not license x-ray operators. State rule 44:03:01:14.01 allows you to operate x-ray equipment, though not CT scanners, by meeting one of these 3 conditions:

• You are credentialed by ARRT
• You are licensed in another state
• You completed 80 documented hours of orientation and training with a qualified instructor

The training has to include radiation safety, the machine itself, image processing or capture, anatomy and positioning, plus state and federal rules. You must keep your own documentation of that training.

Of the 1,094 medical assistant programs listed by the site, 484 have CAAHEP or ABHES accreditation. Accredited means an outside organization has reviewed the program against national standards. For career schools that report program length, the median length is 9 months.

Price changes with school type. At career schools, the median full-program cost is $17,257, including tuition, fees and books. At public colleges, IPEDS puts median in-district tuition and fees at $4,346 for 1 year of full-time study. A total of 1,049 listed programs are at schools taking part in federal student aid.

Yes, in part. Online programs let you complete classes through distance education, while the externship, meaning supervised clinical practice, must always happen face to face. The site lists 30 distance-education programs, and 14 of those hold accreditation.

Here are US median pay figures for medical assistants and nearby jobs, drawn from May 2025 data.

That medical assistant median equals about $21.97 per hour.

Most career school programs take about 9 months, so the sooner you start, the sooner you can get certified. Open the South Dakota programs page, choose the accredited program that fits your schedule and budget, and fill in the Request information form after the program tables. Your name, email, phone number, ZIP code and preferred start time go to that one school.