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Role hub · Medical Assistants

Medical Assistant: what the job is, what it pays, and how to get hired.

The work, the skills that matter, the tools in demand and the pay range, from U.S. government data, plus every TryHired page for the role.

Maid DizdarevicCareer coach · 8x LinkedIn Top Voice
Updated Oct 24, 2026 · Data: BLS OEWS May 2025 · O*NET 31.0
Pay ladder · select a percentile
Median percentile pay

Half of medical assistants earn more than this and half earn less.

Annual
$45,690
Hourly
$21.97
Source
BLS May 2025
Quick answer

Medical Assistants perform administrative and certain clinical duties under the direction of a physician. The median pay is $45,690 a year ($21.97 an hour) (BLS, May 2025). The most commonly reported education requirement is a high school diploma or equivalent (21% of workers surveyed by O*NET).

Median pay
$45,690
BLS May 2025
Employed in the U.S.
817,870
BLS May 2025
Preparation
Job Zone 3 of 5
medium preparation
Most common education
High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED)
21% of workers
Explore the role

Every page for Medical Assistants

SalaryMedical Assistant salary

Pay by percentile, state and metro, with a negotiation script.

Open →How to becomeMedical Assistant how to become

Education, training and the skills to build first.

Open →ResumeMedical Assistant resume

Keywords, bullet formulas and the skills to prove.

Open →Interview questionsMedical Assistant interview questions

Questions with what they test, plus practice mode.

Open →Career changeMedical Assistant career change

Where these skills transfer, with skill match and pay change.

Open →Free toolCheck your resume

Parsed text, evidence per bullet, fixes first.

Open →
The work

What medical assistants do day to day

Data Core tasks rated most important by workers in the role (O*NET).

  1. Interview patients to obtain medical information and measure their vital signs, weight, and height.
  2. Clean and sterilize instruments and dispose of contaminated supplies.
  3. Record patients' medical history, vital statistics, or information such as test results in medical records.
  4. Explain treatment procedures, medications, diets, or physicians' instructions to patients.
  5. Prepare treatment rooms for patient examinations, keeping the rooms neat and clean.
  6. Collect blood, tissue, or other laboratory specimens, log the specimens, and prepare them for testing.
  7. Show patients to examination rooms and prepare them for the physician.
  8. Help physicians examine and treat patients, handing them instruments or materials or performing such tasks as giving injections or removing sutures.
Skills that matter

Ranked by importance to the job

Data O*NET importance ratings. The first three are core.

Social PerceptivenesscoreActive ListeningcoreSpeakingcoreReading ComprehensionCritical ThinkingCoordinationService OrientationMonitoringWriting

Knowledge areas: English Language, Customer and Personal Service, Medicine and Dentistry, Administrative, Computers and Electronics, Education and Training.

Tools and technology

Software medical assistants use

Data Examples reported for the role; employer demand flags from O*NET.

  • Epic SystemsMedical softwareIn demand
  • MEDITECH softwareMedical softwareHot technology
  • eClinicalWorks EHR softwareMedical softwareHot technology
  • Billing softwareBilling and invoicing software
  • Diagnostic and procedural coding softwareCategorization or classification software
  • Electronic medical record EMR softwareMedical software
  • GE Healthcare Centricity EMRMedical software
  • Healthcare common procedure coding system HCPCSMedical software
  • Medical condition coding softwareMedical software
  • Medical procedure coding softwareMedical software
  • Patient management softwareMedical software
  • Visual electro diagnostic softwareMedical software

Also called: Certified Medical Assistant (CMA), Chiropractor Assistant, Clinical Medical Assistant, Doctor's Assistant, Health Assistant, Ophthalmic Assistant.

Method

How this page is built

Tasks, skills, tools, education and related roles come from O*NET 31.0. Pay and employment come from the BLS OEWS May 2025 national estimates. The skill-match score is our calculation: Skill match is the correlation between the two occupations' skill profiles: for each of 35 O*NET skills (10 essential, 25 transferable) we multiply importance by level, subtract the average across all occupations, and correlate the two profiles. 100 means identical shape; 0 or below means unrelated. Only occupations that O*NET itself lists as related are compared.

What this page can't tell you
  • How a specific employer defines the job.
  • Pay for self-employed workers (OEWS covers employees).
  • Your own chances: data describes the occupation, not you.
Sources
  1. O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. TryHired selected, ranked and combined the data; O*NET is not responsible for these pages.
  2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 estimates (public domain).