---
title: "Patient Representative"
description: "Assist patients in obtaining services, understanding policies and making health care decisions."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/patient-representative"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Patient Representative

**Category:** Healthcare Practitioners and Technical · **SOC code:** 29-2099 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 29-2099.08

Assist patients in obtaining services, understanding policies and making health care decisions.

Also advertised as: Access Representative (Access Rep); Admissions Coordinator; BCPA (Board Certified Patient Advocate); Case Manager; Patient Access Specialist; Patient Advocate; Patient Navigator; Patient Resource Worker.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $50,290 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $24.18/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $38,180 to $85,270, with the middle half between $44,170 and $64,340
- **Total US employment:** 182,610
- **Typical entry education:** Certificate
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +5.9% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 12,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 28/100 — 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 182,610 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $38,180 |
| 25th | $44,170 |
| 50th (median) | $50,290 |
| 75th | $64,340 |
| 90th | $85,270 |
| Mean (average) | $58,710 |

### 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 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WY | $80,520 | $86,869 | 90 |
| DE | $78,650 | $78,801 | 110 |
| VI | $72,450 | No BEA price parity | 30 |
| WA | $62,090 | $58,021 | 3,870 |
| ME | $61,490 | $63,359 | 550 |
| MA | $60,500 | $57,207 | 3,550 |
| CA | $60,390 | $54,543 | 26,540 |
| OR | $60,390 | $58,426 | 1,720 |
| NY | $60,320 | $55,893 | 11,910 |
| HI | $59,900 | $54,479 | 1,000 |
| MN | $59,540 | $60,373 | 2,030 |
| VT | $59,470 | $60,710 | 430 |
| CO | $59,430 | $57,670 | 2,470 |
| NJ | $58,300 | $53,582 | 5,830 |
| RI | $57,800 | $56,512 | 530 |

38 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 53 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/patient-representative/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/patient-representative.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 185,600 in the 2025–2035 base year to 196,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 10,900 jobs, or +5.9%. Faster than average: 5.9% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 12,400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Postsecondary nondegree award (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

## What the work involves

- Coordinate communication between patients, family members, medical staff, administrative staff, or regulatory agencies.
- Interview patients or their representatives to identify problems relating to care.
- Maintain knowledge of community services and resources available to patients.
- Refer patients to appropriate health care services or resources.
- Read current literature, talk with colleagues, continue education, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in the field.
- Explain policies, procedures, or services to patients using medical or administrative knowledge.
- Investigate and direct patient inquiries or complaints to appropriate medical staff members and follow up to ensure satisfactory resolution.
- Collect and report data on topics, such as patient encounters or inter-institutional problems, making recommendations for change when appropriate.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 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 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Psychology — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Medicine and Dentistry — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Therapy and Counseling — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 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 Social (S), Investigative (I), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| S — Social | 6.62 |
| I — Investigative | 4.06 |
| C — Conventional | 3.83 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.12 |
| A — Artistic | 1.59 |
| R — Realistic | 1.27 |

### 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) |
| --- | --- |
| ESFJ | 73.1 |
| ENFJ | 71.1 |
| ISFJ | 63.5 |
| ESFP | 63.0 |
| INFJ | 58.5 |

Best-fitting types: ESFJ, ENFJ.

## Related occupations

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

- [Health Information Technologist and Medical Registrar](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-information-technologist-and-medical-registrar) — median $68,020
- [Medical Records Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-records-specialist) — median $51,140
- [Community Health Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/community-health-worker) — median $51,850
- [Health Informatics Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-informatics-specialist) — median $105,850
- [Social and Human Service Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/social-and-human-service-assistant) — median $45,930
- [Medical and Health Services Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-and-health-services-manager) — median $123,860
- [Health Education Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/health-education-specialist) — median $64,070
- [Nursing Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/nursing-assistant) — median $42,260
- [Medical Assistant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/medical-assistant) — median $45,690
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 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, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **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 31.0 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/patient-representative