Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants
Perform secretarial duties using specific knowledge of medical terminology and hospital, clinic, or laboratory procedures. Duties may include scheduling appointments, billing patients, and compiling and recording medical charts, reports, and correspondence.
- Median pay
- $45,930
- Doing it now
- 979,000
- By 2035
- Up 4.8%
- Usually needs
- High school diploma or equivalent
a year
across the country
89,200 openings a year
to get in
What the work involves
- Schedule and confirm patient diagnostic appointments, surgeries, or medical consultations.
- Answer telephones and direct calls to appropriate staff.
- Receive and route messages or documents, such as laboratory results, to appropriate staff.
- Greet visitors, ascertain purpose of visit, and direct them to appropriate staff.
- Interview patients to complete documents, case histories, or forms, such as intake or insurance forms.
- Maintain medical records, technical library, or correspondence files.
- Operate office equipment, such as voice mail messaging systems, and use word processing, spreadsheet, or other software applications to prepare reports, invoices, financial statements, letters, case histories, or medical records.
What to study
The fields of study the Department of Education links to this occupation, most widely taught first.
- Health and Medical Administrative ServicesSee 601 colleges that teach it
- Veterinary Administrative ServicesSee 1 colleges that teach it
Who it suits
O*NET scores every occupation on six interest dimensions. This one leans hardest on these three.
Organised and precise
Helping and teaching
Leading and persuading
Careers like this one
Where this comes from: the description and the task list are O*NET, which the Department of Labor maintains. Pay, workforce size, outlook and the education normally needed are the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections programme, 2025 wages and 2025 to 2035 projections. Half of them earn more than $45,930 a year, which means half earn less, and what you would earn depends on where you work and how long you have been doing it. The fields of study come from the National Center for Education Statistics crosswalk.