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Medical Secretaries and Administrative Assistants

SOC 43-6013 · 2024-2034

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.

How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.

What California expects of this job

Typical pay in California
$55,779per year
Projected openings
128,130
Projected change
+12.6%
Usually needs
High school diploma or equivalent

Bright Outlook — a U.S. Department of Labor designation
Numerous Job Openings

The Department's own designation, made from its national projections. It is not this project's assessment and it is not California's: every other figure on this page comes from California's projection, which can point the other way and for some occupations does.

Skills this work uses most

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.

  1. Speaking
  2. Active Listening
  3. Service Orientation
  4. Reading Comprehension
  5. Complex Problem Solving
  6. Critical Thinking

Pay by region

RegionTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openings
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (San Benito and Santa Clara Counties)$68,8316,560
San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties)$67,5166,380
Napa MSA (Napa County)$62,252440
Vallejo MSA (Solano County)$61,5581,060
Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)$60,4517,910
San Rafael MD (Marin County)$59,938710
Santa Rosa-Petaluma MSA (Sonoma County)$58,2071,180
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom MSA (El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo Counties)$57,5138,870
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale MD (Los Angeles County)$53,59834,470
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles MSA (San Luis Obispo County)$53,079940
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura MSA (Ventura County)$52,6912,870
Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region (Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, and Tuolumne Counties)$51,843340
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad MSA (San Diego County)$51,53711,320
Salinas MSA (Monterey County)$51,516940
Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA (Santa Cruz County)$50,954640
Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine MD (Orange County)$50,34713,780
Chico MSA (Butte County)$49,892600
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA (Santa Barbara County)$49,3711,020
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties)$49,23811,460
Yuba City MSA (Sutter and Yuba Counties)$49,197310
North Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties)$48,666600
Stockton-Lodi MSA (San Joaquin County)$48,2371,330
North Valley-Northern Mountains Region (Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties)$47,604540
Fresno MSA (Fresno and Madera Counties)$47,4813,400
Visalia MSA (Tulare County)$47,1751,040
Redding MSA (Shasta County)$46,919560
Bakersfield-Delano MSA (Kern County)$46,8371,780
El Centro MSA (Imperial County)$46,112370
Hanford-Corcoran MSA (Kings County)$45,418240
Merced MSA (Merced County)$41,556420
Modesto MSA (Stanislaus County)$41,5561,530

What the pay actually ranges across

The lowest-paid tenth earn under
$41,612
A quarter earn under
$47,692
Half earn under
$55,779
Three quarters earn under
$64,829
The highest-paid tenth earn over
$77,819

A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.

Similar work

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.

OccupationTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openingsProjected change
Medical Records Specialists$63,54015,610+15%
Receptionists and Information Clerks$45,143112,320+5.3%
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive$56,711182,240+1.4%
Medical Assistants$50,918175,850+22.7%
Office Clerks, General$49,607356,700-4.5%
Health Technologists and Technicians, All Other$62,08022,750+14.3%

Programs that train for this job — 47