Final answer:
A medical assistant should inform the provider if a patient reports their medication is not working. Doubling doses or authorizing refills without the provider's input is inappropriate and unsafe. A provider's endorsement or photographs alone are not sufficient to assess a medication's effectiveness.
Step-by-step explanation:
If a patient calls into the office to report that their medication is "not working", the most appropriate response for a medical assistant would be "I will notify the provider about your situation." It is crucial that healthcare professionals assess the situation to determine if the medication plan needs to be altered. Telling the patient to keep taking the medication, to double the dose, or offering a refill without a provider's evaluation could result in adverse effects and is not within the medical assistant's scope of practice.
It is not enough to rely solely on an endorsement by a doctor or photographic evidence when evaluating a medical product's efficacy. Clinical symptoms, patient history, and possibly further diagnostic tests are necessary to determine whether a medication is effective for a particular patient. When Barbara returned to the health center with lingering symptoms after completing a full course of amoxicillin, the PA's decision to reassess her condition was the correct approach to ensure proper care and treatment.