How Much Is Your Medical Support Staff Getting Paid?

New research from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) reveals that salaries and wages for medical support staff are rising despite staff shortages and rampant turnover. The 2024 MGMA DataDive Management and Staff Compensation survey report found that 8 in 10 medical group leaders spent more time recruiting and interviewing support staff than they did the previous year.

The report helps physicians and practice leaders understand what it takes to attract and retain the right medical support talent through competitive compensation and benefits packages, workplace cultural improvements, and other technological advancements.

Medical Assistants, Certified Nursing Assistants, and Patient Care Assistants

Median total compensation for medical assistant (MA) positions grew 3.26% from 2022 to 2023, with 5-year median compensation growth for MAs just above $7400. MA's median hourly rate of compensation rose only $0.57 in 2023, gains for certified nursing assistants (CNAs) rose $1.61, and patient care assistants increased to $2.15.

A 5-year look at hourly wage compensation across MA and nursing positions shows steady, incremental gains keeping pace with annual total compensation. Looking back 10 years, the report showed MA compensation rose 41.36% through 2023.

CNAs' pay increased by 5.78% over 1 year, MAs' pay increased by 3.13%, and patient care assistants' pay increased by 8.82% from 2022 to 2023.

Benefits like paid time off (PTO) hours to pursue continuing education, which helps support employee growth and improves retention, also saw a 2-day growth, that's 16 PTO hours for support staff to pursue continuing education.

The report also found that compensation varied widely by region, with MA compensation being highest in the eastern and western regions and CNA compensation being highest in the west. The difference between the highest and lowest paying regions was also included for each support position.

Other Support Staff Findings

Nonmanagerial roles in medical group practices continued to show robust year-over-year compensation gains.

The report also found a front office support staff turnover rate of 40% in 2022 and 33.33% turnover rates for clinical support staff and business operations support staff, respectively.

Benefits

While salaries and wages are a big part of a practice's retention strategy for support staff, other factors play a role in total compensation packages that can affect hiring and retention efforts.

• Only about one in five (21%) of respondents said that their organizations expanded or improved their benefit offerings in the past year.
• The majority (70%) said that benefits largely stayed the same.
• A total of 9% signaled that their benefit offerings had declined from the previous year.

Among medical group leaders who did expand benefit offerings, the most common included new wellness benefits, mental health resources, gym memberships, an increasing employer contribution to health insurance, a uniform allowance, expansions to paid leave and offering it from day 1, and pet insurance.

Jennifer Nelson is Features Editor, Reports at Medscape Medical News. Her work has also appeared at WebMD, Medical Economics, and MedPage Today, as well as The Washington Post, AARP, US News & World Report, The Oprah Magazine, Women's Health, and others.