Medical Office Staff Pay in 2026: Median Salary by Role

Median pay for medical office roles in 2025 ran from $38,010 for receptionists to $123,860 for medical and health services managers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Medical assistants earned $45,690 and registered nurses earned $97,550 on the same basis.

Practice managers use these figures to set pay ranges and to test a budget before an offer goes out. The figures cover six roles that appear in most independent practices, plus MGMA data on raise budgets. Unless the text says otherwise, each figure is the national median for all employers. The BLS pages used here were last modified between August 27, 2026 and September 14, 2026.

Median pay and job counts for six roles

Registered nurses are the largest of the six groups, with 3,465,400 jobs in 2025. Medical records specialists are the smallest, with 200,700 jobs. The table shows pay, employment, and the BLS growth projection for each role.

Role	Median pay, all employers, 2025	Median pay, offices of physicians	Jobs, 2025	Projected growth, 2025 to 2035
Receptionists	$38,010	Not reported on the BLS page	947,500	-2.0%
Medical assistants	$45,690	$45,520	833,900	13.0%
Medical records specialists	$51,140	$47,120	200,700	8.0%
Licensed practical nurses	$64,400	$59,520	666,900	3.0%
Registered nurses	$97,550	$91,230	3,465,400	6.0%
Medical and health services managers	$123,860	$105,770	640,400	24.0%

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook pages for each role, modified August 27, 2026 (licensed practical nurses: September 14, 2026).

A registered nurse earns $51,860 more than a medical assistant at the national median, which is 2.1 times the pay. A manager earns 2.7 times the pay of a medical assistant. Receptionists earn $7,680 less than medical assistants. The spread from the lowest role to the highest is $85,850, and a manager earns 3.3 times the pay of a receptionist.

How physician office pay compares with the national median

Physician offices pay less than the national median for every role where BLS reports both figures. The gap is smallest for medical assistants. The office median of $45,520 sits $170 below the national $45,690, a difference of 0.4%. BLS reports that 56.0% of medical assistants work in offices of physicians.

Licensed practical nurses show a wider gap. Their office median is $59,520, which is $4,880 or 7.6% below the national $64,400. Only 11.0% of these nurses work in physician offices. A practice that hires a licensed practical nurse at the office median pays $14,000 more than it pays a medical assistant at the office median.

Registered nurses in physician offices earn $91,230, which is $6,320 or 6.5% below the $97,550 national median. Medical records specialists earn $47,120 in physician offices, which is $4,020 or 7.9% below their $51,140 national median. BLS reports that 18.0% of these specialists work in physician offices.

Managers show the widest gap. The office median is $105,770 against $123,860 overall, a difference of $18,090 or 14.6%. About 13.0% of managers work in physician offices. For receptionists, BLS lists a median of $19 per hour in healthcare and social assistance, compared with about $18 per hour across all industries.

Which roles grow and which shrink through 2035

BLS projects that employment across all occupations grows 3.0% from 2025 to 2035. Medical and health services managers grow 24.0% and have 62,300 openings a year. Medical assistants grow 13.0%, which is 4.3 times the all-occupation rate, and have 109,700 openings a year. Records specialists grow 8.0%, with 14,000 openings a year.

Registered nurses grow 6.0%, with 180,800 openings a year. Licensed practical nurses grow 3.0%, with 51,800. Receptionist employment falls 2.0%, a loss of 16,000 jobs. BLS still projects 105,100 receptionist openings a year, because workers transfer to other jobs or retire.

Openings relative to jobs show where turnover pressure sits. Yearly openings equal 13.2% of medical assistant jobs and 11.1% of receptionist jobs. They equal 9.7% of manager jobs, 7.8% of licensed practical nurse jobs, 7.0% of records specialist jobs, and 5.2% of registered nurse jobs. These ratios come from dividing the BLS openings by the BLS job counts.

MGMA reported in September 2025 that medical assistants remain a top recruiting challenge for 47.0% of practices. That role has both the highest opening ratio and the second largest job count of the six.

What a 2026 raise budget costs per role

MGMA polled 349 medical groups on September 9, 2025. Of these, 64.0% budgeted average base pay increases of 1.0% to 3.0% for staff. Another 23.0% budgeted 4.0% to 6.0%, 1.0% budgeted 7.0% or more, and 10.0% budgeted no increase.

MGMA also cited its 2025 Management and Staff Compensation dataset of more than 4,300 groups, which covers 2024 data. Triage nurse pay rose 14.3% year over year and registered nurse pay rose 11.9%. Supervisor pay rose 12.0% and general accounting pay rose 17.4%. Each of these rises is larger than the 1.0% to 3.0% range that 64.0% of groups budgeted.

At the $45,520 office median for medical assistants, a 1.0% raise costs $455 per person and a 3.0% raise costs $1,366. A 4.0% raise costs $1,821 and a 6.0% raise costs $2,731. A group with 10 medical assistants at the median spends $18,208 to $27,312 a year on the 4.0% to 6.0% range, before payroll taxes and benefits. A 7.0% catch-up raise for one medical assistant at the median costs $3,186.

At the $59,520 office median for licensed practical nurses, a 1.0% raise costs $595 and a 6.0% raise costs $3,571. At the $105,770 office median for managers, a 4.0% to 6.0% raise costs $4,231 to $6,346 per person.

Sources

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