Healthcare Administrative Staffing Statistics for 2026

Healthcare administrative work is spread across front desks, call centers, billing offices, referral teams, records departments, and clinical support roles. That makes the workforce hard to measure with one headline number. The best 2026 view comes from combining federal employment data with current medical group surveys and workload studies.

The figures point in the same direction. Pay has risen, entry-level hiring remains difficult, and turnover is still concentrated in front-office and patient access jobs. At the same time, prior authorization, payment collection, scheduling, and electronic record work continue to consume staff capacity.

This article uses the latest available national data released through September 17, 2026. Survey figures are labeled as surveys, and older measurement years are stated instead of being presented as 2026 observations.

Healthcare administrative staffing statistics at a glance

These measures come from different populations, so they should not be combined into a single staffing rate. A hospital revenue cycle department and a small physician practice front desk face different workloads even when both employ medical administrative staff.

Employment and pay for medical administrative staff

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 830,760 medical secretaries and administrative assistants in May 2024. Their mean hourly wage was $21.91 and their mean annual wage was $45,580. The median hourly wage was $21.46. These figures were published on April 2, 2025 in the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release.

This occupational category covers workers who use medical terminology and knowledge of hospital, clinic, or laboratory procedures. Typical duties include appointment scheduling, billing, and maintaining charts and correspondence. It does not cover every employee who performs administrative work in healthcare. Billing clerks, insurance claims processors, receptionists, office managers, and medical assistants sit in separate classifications.

BLS also reported 229,070 insurance claims and policy processing clerks across all industries, with a mean annual wage of $51,980. The broader category is useful for labor cost comparisons, but it should not be treated as a count of healthcare claims staff because it includes insurance-sector jobs outside provider organizations.

For medical assistants, whose jobs often mix clinical and administrative duties, BLS reported a May 2024 median wage of $44,200. It projects 12% employment growth from 2024 to 2034 and about 112,300 openings per year. Many of those openings will replace people who change occupations or leave the labor force, rather than represent newly created positions. BLS published those projections on August 28, 2025 in its Medical Assistants Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Hiring and vacancy pressure in 2026

National employment growth does not mean that individual practices can fill a vacancy quickly. MGMA's May 19, 2026 poll of 297 medical practices found that 56% said medical assistant hiring had become harder in the prior year. Another 37% said it was about the same, and only 7% said it had become easier. MGMA published the results on May 20, 2026 in its medical assistant hiring report.

Medical assistants are relevant to administrative capacity because many practices use them for intake, rooming, records, messages, and scheduling support. When a practice cannot fill those positions, work moves to nurses, front-office employees, or clinicians.

The same MGMA report found that median total compensation for medical assistants rose 4.67% in 2024. Over five years, compensation increased nearly 24.6%. Those data show wage pressure, but they do not establish a national vacancy rate.

Vacancy and turnover should be tracked separately. Vacancy measures unfilled positions at a point in time. Turnover measures departures over a period. A practice can have low turnover and still operate short-staffed if it freezes positions or takes months to replace people. MGMA recommends watching vacancy rate alongside overtime, call abandonment, message queue age, denial follow-up age, and the third-next-available appointment.

Turnover remains concentrated in front-office roles

MGMA asked medical practice leaders in May 2026 how staff turnover compared with 2025. Among 303 applicable responses, 39% said turnover was about the same, 30% said it was lower, and 28% said it was higher. The remaining 2% were unsure. MGMA published the poll on May 28, 2026 in its staff turnover analysis.

The poll did not calculate an annual turnover rate. It measured direction. That distinction matters: it supports the statement that turnover stabilized for most respondents, but it does not support a claim that the typical practice has a 28% turnover rate.

Practices reporting increased turnover most often named medical assistants, nurses, clinical support staff, and front-desk or administrative employees. Billing and revenue cycle roles also appeared in responses. Even among practices where turnover held steady, front-desk and entry-level administrative jobs remained common churn points.

Earlier MGMA benchmark data provides a useful warning about the scale turnover can reach. Its 2024 Management and Staff Compensation report stated that front-office support staff turnover reached 40% in 2022. That figure is a historical benchmark, not a 2026 rate. It still explains why retention and cross-training remain active concerns in current practice surveys. MGMA released that report in January 2024 as Successful Healthcare Hiring and Employee Retention in 2024.

Administrative burden creates its own staffing demand

Prior authorization is one of the clearest measures of administrative workload. The American Medical Association's 2025 survey of 1,000 practicing physicians found that each physician completed about 40 prior authorization requests per week. Physicians and staff spent about 13 hours a week on that work, and 40% of practices had employees dedicated exclusively to prior authorization. The AMA published the findings on June 4, 2026 in its latest prior authorization survey summary.

At 13 hours per physician, a five-physician practice faces roughly 65 hours of combined physician and staff effort each week if its workload matches the survey average. That multiplication is an illustration, not a national staffing ratio. Actual work varies by specialty, payer mix, and treatment patterns.

Claims and payment work creates a separate burden. The American Hospital Association estimated that hospitals spent $43 billion in 2025 trying to collect payments insurers owed for care already delivered. Its analysis of annual survey data found that the average hospital employed about 64 administrative and billing staff for those functions in 2024, equal to roughly 6.5% of hospital employment. The AHA published those figures in March 2026 in its Costs of Caring report.

The CAQH Index offers a wider measure of transaction work. Its 2024 report tracked $90 billion in annual spending on manual and automated administrative workflows in medical and dental organizations. CAQH estimated that $20 billion, or 22% of the tracked spending, could be saved by moving more transactions to fully electronic processes. The report also states that this cost measure includes labor time for each transaction but excludes information gathering, follow-up, and system costs. CAQH published the 2024 Index in February 2025.

Scheduling data shows pressure on patient access

Scheduling performance depends on provider supply, room capacity, appointment templates, and administrative execution. It is not solely a front-desk metric. Still, current access data shows how much work scheduling teams are managing.

A July 2025 MGMA poll of 269 medical groups found that 31% had longer new-patient waits than in 2024. Forty percent reported no change and 26% reported shorter waits. Groups that improved commonly mentioned support staff additions, standardized templates, waitlists, electronic check-in, and self-scheduling. MGMA published the findings on July 2, 2025 in its appointment wait-time analysis.

That article also cites AMN Healthcare's 2025 survey of six specialties in 15 large metropolitan areas. The average wait for a new-patient appointment was 31 days, up 19% from 2022. Specialty averages ranged from 12 days for orthopedic surgery to 42 days for obstetrics and gynecology. AMN released the 2025 Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times on May 27, 2025.

Digital scheduling has not removed most manual work. A November 2024 MGMA poll found that only 11% of medical groups had most patients using digital tools to schedule appointments. By July 2025, 71% of practices still reported that fewer than one-quarter of patients used self-scheduling. MGMA published the later poll on July 30, 2025 in its digital self-scheduling analysis.

Documentation work extends beyond the appointment

Electronic health record data gives a more precise view of documentation burden than self-reported estimates. A study of 307 primary care physicians across 31 practices measured a median 36.2 minutes of EHR time per visit. That included 7.8 minutes in the inbox and 6.2 minutes outside regular weekday hours or on weekends. The health system scheduled primary care visits for 30 minutes.

The activity data came from 2021, so it should not be described as a 2026 measurement. The study remains useful because it measured actual system activity rather than asking physicians to estimate time. The AMA summarized the peer-reviewed study on January 23, 2024 in Primary care visits run a half hour. Time on the EHR? 36 minutes.

The study also found substantial variation. Median EHR time ranged from 23.5 to 47.9 minutes per visit across clinics. Greater team contribution to orders was associated with less physician EHR time. That finding supports team-based documentation and inbox workflows, but it does not mean every practice will save the same number of minutes by adding staff.

Labor cost context for staffing decisions

Administrative payroll sits inside a much larger healthcare labor budget. The AHA reported that workforce spending accounted for about 60% of total hospital expenses in 2025 and exceeded $1 trillion. Hospital workforce costs rose 5.6% from 2024, while total hospital expenses grew 7.5%. The AHA released those figures on March 11, 2026 in its Costs of Caring report announcement.

The 60% figure covers doctors, nurses, specialists, support staff, and purchased services. It is not the administrative share of hospital costs. For an administrative staffing model, the stronger inputs are the occupation-specific BLS wage figures, employer payroll costs, local benefit rates, and the work volume a team must process.

A medical secretary paid at the BLS mean of $45,580 costs $21.91 per productive hour before employer taxes, benefits, paid leave, recruiting, management, facilities, and software. Practices should not compare that wage alone with a contractor or managed service rate. A fair comparison uses total employer cost and checks which party supplies coverage, training, supervision, compliance controls, and technology.

What healthcare employers can take from the 2026 data

The current data does not support a simple claim that healthcare staffing has recovered or remains in crisis everywhere. Most medical groups reported stable or lower turnover in 2026, yet front-office churn persisted and medical assistant hiring became harder for more than half of surveyed practices.

Workload also matters as much as headcount. Prior authorization consumes about 13 hours per physician each week. Hospitals devote billions of dollars and thousands of employees to payment collection. Scheduling teams are working in a market where the average new-patient wait reached 31 days, while digital self-scheduling still handles a minority of appointments at most practices.

For leaders reviewing capacity, the practical measures are open positions, time to fill, turnover by role, overtime, abandoned calls, appointment wait time, message age, and claims follow-up age. Those measures show where the operation is short, even when the total headcount looks adequate.

Practices considering outside support can compare these workload measures with the scope of a healthcare virtual assistant or a medical virtual assistant. Our guide to healthcare administration outsourcing describes common task boundaries for scheduling, records, insurance follow-up, and patient communication. Protected health information should only move through approved systems with appropriate access controls, training, and contractual safeguards.

Sources

1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2024, published April 2, 2025.
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Medical Assistants, Occupational Outlook Handbook, published August 28, 2025.
3. Medical Group Management Association, Medical assistants: Tackling practices' worst hiring problem before it gets worse, published May 20, 2026.
4. Medical Group Management Association, Stabilized but not solved: Staff turnover in medical practices looking no better, no worse in 2026, published May 28, 2026.
5. American Medical Association, Latest prior auth survey shows promised reform remains elusive, published June 4, 2026.
6. American Hospital Association, Costs of Caring 2026, published March 11, 2026.
7. CAQH, 2024 CAQH Index, published February 2025.
8. Medical Group Management Association, Opportunities to improve new-patient appointment wait times, published July 2, 2025.
9. American Medical Association, Primary care visits run a half hour. Time on the EHR? 36 minutes, published January 23, 2024.

Frequently asked questions

How many medical secretaries and administrative assistants work in the United States?

BLS estimated that 830,760 medical secretaries and administrative assistants were employed in May 2024. It is the latest national occupational employment estimate available for this article. The count does not include all billing, reception, claims, or office management positions in healthcare.

What is the average pay for a medical administrative assistant?

The national mean was $45,580 per year, or $21.91 per hour, in May 2024. The median hourly wage was $21.46. Local wages can differ substantially by market and employer type.

Is healthcare staff turnover improving in 2026?

It is stable or improving for most respondents to MGMA's May 2026 poll: 39% said turnover was unchanged and 30% said it was lower than in 2025. Another 28% said turnover had increased. Front-desk, administrative, medical assistant, and clinical support roles remained frequent pressure points.

How much time does prior authorization take?

The AMA's 2025 physician survey found about 40 requests and 13 hours of physician and staff time per physician each week. Workload varies by specialty and payer mix, so practices should measure their own request volume and completion time.

Which administrative metrics should a medical practice track?

Useful measures include vacancy rate, time to fill, turnover by role, overtime, call abandonment, scheduling accuracy, third-next-available appointment, message queue age, denial follow-up age, and days in accounts receivable. Together, they show whether a practice has enough capacity and where delays begin.