What is a Medical Secretary?

<h3 id="section---ImportantFactsAboutMedicalSecretaries"> Important Facts About Medical Secretaries</h3><p></p><table border="1"><tr><td> On-the-Job Training </td><td> Post-educational professional training will be required</td></tr> <tr><td> Key Skills </td><td> Customer service oriented, reading comprehension, social awareness, time management, clear writing and speaking ability, critical thinking, problem solving</td></tr> <tr><td> Professional Certification </td><td> Voluntary; Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA) available through the National Healthcareer Association</td></tr> <tr><td> Similar Occupations </td><td> Medical records and health information technicians, receptionists, information clerks, license clerks</td></tr> </table><h3 id="section---EducationAndTrainingRequirements"> Education and Training Requirements</h3><p>A high school diploma is generally all that is needed to become a medical secretary, and these professionals are often trained on-the-job. To improve their chances of being hired, some prospective medical secretaries obtain general office experience first. </p><p>In addition, some technical schools and colleges offer a certificate program or a 2-year, associate degree program that provides specialized training. The course topics covered in these programs include: </p><ul><li>Medical machine transcription </li><li>Anatomy and physiology </li><li>Medical database management </li><li>Business communication </li><li>Medical keyboarding </li><li>Health insurance claims </li><li>Medical office procedures </li><li>Medical terminology </li><li>Business mathematics </li><li>Human relations </li><li>Pathophysiology </li><li>Business software applications </li></ul><h3 id="section---PlacesOfEmployment"> Places of Employment</h3><p>A medical secretary may work at a variety of health care-related worksites. While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), <i>www.bls.gov</i>, notes that most of these professionals worked for offices of physicians in May 2018, other places of employment included: </p><ul><li>Health practitioners' offices </li><li>Outpatient care centers </li><li>General medical and surgical hospitals </li><li>Grantmaking and giving services </li><li>Insurance carriers </li><li>Scientific research and development services </li></ul><h3 id="section---EmploymentOutlookAndSalaryInformation"> Employment Outlook and Salary Information</h3><p>The BLS reported that medical secretaries would experience much more employment growth than other types of secretaries and administrative assistants over the 2021-2031 decade. While growth for secretaries and administrative assistants in general is expected to decline by 8%, medical secretaries are expected to have an employment growth of 8%, which is faster than average. </p><p>The average salary for medical secretaries was $39,740 as of May 2021, reported the BLS. Among the top employers, those working for physicians' offices made the highest average salary of $38,130. Medical secretaries working for general medical and surgical hospitals earned $40,450 on average, while those working for dentists' offices averaged $43,170.</p>