---
title: "Medical Secretary and Administrative Assistant"
description: "Perform secretarial duties using specific knowledge of medical terminology and hospital, clinic, or laboratory procedures. Duties may include scheduling…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-secretary-and-administrative-assistant"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Medical Secretary and Administrative Assistant

**Category:** Office and Administrative Support · **SOC code:** 43-6013 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 43-6013.00

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.

Also advertised as: Clinic Office Assistant; Front Desk Receptionist; Medical Office Specialist; Medical Receptionist; Medical Secretary; Physician Office Specialist; Secretary; Unit Clerk.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $45,930 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $22.08/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $35,930 to $60,530, with the middle half between $38,570 and $50,580
- **Total US employment:** 961,610
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +4.2% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 85,900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 27/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 961,610 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $35,930 |
| 25th | $38,570 |
| 50th (median) | $45,930 |
| 75th | $50,580 |
| 90th | $60,530 |
| Mean (average) | $46,800 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $58,100 | $54,292 | 10,960 |
| CA | $54,490 | $49,214 | 115,050 |
| MA | $50,290 | $47,552 | 22,210 |
| OR | $50,130 | $48,500 | 16,840 |
| MN | $50,030 | $50,730 | 16,860 |
| HI | $49,920 | $45,402 | 2,160 |
| DC | $49,180 | $44,749 | 1,930 |
| NJ | $48,660 | $44,722 | 20,980 |
| CT | $48,500 | $46,810 | 6,480 |
| NH | $48,410 | $46,474 | 3,680 |
| WI | $48,380 | $51,416 | 7,760 |
| VT | $48,200 | $49,205 | 2,390 |
| AK | $47,870 | $46,767 | 2,520 |
| MD | $47,850 | $45,589 | 17,290 |
| NY | $47,710 | $44,208 | 57,720 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-secretary-and-administrative-assistant/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/medical-secretary-and-administrative-assistant.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 850,000 in the 2024–2034 base year to 885,300 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 35,300 jobs, or +4.2%. Faster than average: 4.2% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 85,900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 47.6% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 26.0% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 19.9% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 5.3% |
| Some College Courses | 1.2% |

## What the work involves

- Answer telephones and direct calls to appropriate staff.
- Schedule and confirm patient diagnostic appointments, surgeries, or medical consultations.
- Transmit correspondence or medical records by mail, e-mail, or fax.
- 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.
- 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.
- Perform bookkeeping duties, such as credits or collections, preparing and sending financial statements or bills, and keeping financial records.
- Interview patients to complete documents, case histories, or forms, such as intake or insurance forms.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 2.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Social (S), Enterprising (E).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.67 |
| S — Social | 4.13 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.17 |
| I — Investigative | 3.02 |
| R — Realistic | 2.29 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISFJ | 82.1 |
| ESFJ | 79.2 |
| ESTJ | 78.6 |
| ISTJ | 73.3 |
| ENFJ | 53.7 |

Best-fitting types: ISFJ, ESFJ, ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Receptionist and Information Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/receptionist-and-information-clerk) — median $38,010
- [Medical Records Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-records-specialist) — median $51,140
- [Secretary and Administrative Assistant, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive](https://nuecareer.com/careers/secretary-and-administrative-assistant) — median $47,540
- [Office Clerk, General](https://nuecareer.com/careers/office-clerk-general) — median $45,010
- [Medical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-assistant) — median $45,690
- [Patient Representative](https://nuecareer.com/careers/patient-representative) — median $50,290
- [Executive Secretary and Executive Administrative Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/executive-secretary-and-executive-administrative-assistant) — median $76,590
- [Medical Transcriptionist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-transcriptionist) — median $40,410
- [Customer Service Representative](https://nuecareer.com/careers/customer-service-representative) — median $44,770
- [Insurance Claim and Policy Processing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/insurance-claim-and-policy-processing-clerk) — median $49,230

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/medical-secretary-and-administrative-assistant