Are you wondering how to become a certified phlebotomist? This is indeed a rewarding career choice that offers a lot of advantages. You can be part of the respected medical community, while enjoying good job security and nice pay.

Coming back to how actually to land a phlebotomist job, you need to meet certain requirements. But the first step of the process is to determine if this is really a good career option for you.

In order to assess the fit of your personality with the job profile, here are a few questions to guide your towards the answer:

• Do you enjoy interacting with a lot of strangers? Are you able to communicate effectively in such circumstances?
• Are you able to remain calm in stressful situations? Can you also calm others down?
• Are you comfortable working with needles and seeing blood?
• Do you find being part of the medical community rewarding?

If going through the above has lead you to the conclusion that you would like to become phlebotomist, then you can move on and see what are the specifics of getting there.

Preparing For Certification

There are different certification requirements in each state. in some you need a college degree, in others you just need a GED equivalent or high school diploma. Check what is the case in the state you live in.

Then, you will need to follow phlebotomy classes and pass the exam at the end. There are a number of organizations and associations that can provide valid certification. Some of them are:

• American Society for Clinical Pathology’s Board of Certification (ASCP-BOC)
• National Health Career Association (NHA)
• American Credentialing Agency (ACA)
• American Association of Medical Assistants (AAMA)
• American Medical Technologists (AMT)
• National Center for Competency Testing (NCCT)

Before choosing what certification to get, double-check that this will be fine to meet the requirements in your state. After that you can enroll to the classes of an education center and start your journey.

While the tax for the final exam is typically set, with same price across most testing centers, the cost of the training classes varies. And not only the cost, but also the quality of the education and the form of delivery.

There are online classes, day or evening live courses and also hybrid form programs that include both. You can choose according to your preference and lifestyle.

Phlebotomy curriculum includes the procedures you need to use in your job. The exam you will need to pass can be either in a paper written form or via computer. Computer testing uses technology called “CAT”, which means that questions are selected by the computer based on your answer to the previous ones.

In addition to successfully passing the certification exam, most organizations also require two hundred hours of phlebotomist training and one hundred venipunctures in a clinical practice, prior to providing the phlebotomy certification.

Some hospitals require additional on-the-job training hours before working there as a phlebotomist. However, in a lot of cases, you are paid a set wage while undergoing the training.