Medical Assistant Job Description: Template, Duties, Requirements & Pay (2026)

A medical assistant runs both halves of an outpatient visit — rooming patients, vitals, injections and specimen collection on the clinical side; scheduling, insurance and billing on the administrative side. Below is a copy-paste medical assistant job description template, the requirements worth keeping (and the ones that quietly cost you applicants), and what it costs to reach healthcare candidates on social, from Boostpoint's campaign data.

$21.97/hr · $45,690/yrMedian pay, 2025 (BLS OOH)

833,900Medical assistants employed in the U.S. (2025)

~109,700Openings per year, 2025–35

Usually optionalCertification (varies by state and employer)

13%Projected growth, 2025–35

$15.42 medianCost per applicant, healthcare sector (2026)

What a medical assistant does

Medical assistants are the people who make an outpatient clinic run. On the clinical side they interview patients, take vital signs, assist with examinations, administer injections and collect blood and other specimens. On the administrative side they schedule appointments, handle insurance coverage and billing, keep supplies stocked and answer the phones. The exact mix is set by state law and by the employer, and the BLS says so directly — which is why two medical assistant postings in the same city can describe two genuinely different jobs.

That split is the single most important thing to get right in the posting. A candidate who trained clinically and wants to keep her injection skills will not apply to a job she reads as front-desk work, and a candidate who wants the front desk will not apply to one that reads as phlebotomy. Say which one it is, or say honestly that it is both and roughly in what proportion.

Entry to the field is a postsecondary nondegree award — a certificate or diploma program, typically a year or less. Certification is a separate question: the BLS states that although most states do not require it, employers may prefer or require that medical assistants be certified. The best-known credential is the CMA (AAMA), which the American Association of Medical Assistants requires holders to recertify with 60 continuing-education units; AAMA also publishes state scope-of-practice laws, because what a medical assistant may legally do is a state question, not a national one.

Medical assistant job description template

Copy this into your ATS or job board, replace the bracketed fields, and delete anything that does not apply to your clinic. It is ordered the way applicants read — pay, schedule, location and clinical-versus-administrative split first — because those are the four things people screen on before they reach a duty list.

Job title

Medical Assistant — [Clinical / Administrative / Clinical & Front Office], [Full-time / Part-time], [Specialty]

Summary

[Practice name] is hiring a medical assistant for our [specialty] clinic in [city, state]. Pay is $[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX]/hour depending on experience and certification. The role is roughly [70%] clinical and [30%] front office: you will room patients, take vitals, assist with procedures and [give injections / draw labs], and help keep the schedule moving. Hours are [Mon–Fri, 8:00–5:00], no nights, no weekends, no call.

Clinical responsibilities

Room patients, record vital signs, height, weight and reason for visit in [EHR name]
Take and update medication and allergy lists; complete pre-visit screening
Assist the provider during examinations and in-office procedures
Administer injections and immunizations as permitted in [state] and per practice protocol
Collect and label specimens; run in-office point-of-care tests
Clean and stock exam rooms; track expiry dates on medications and supplies
Document every task in the chart before the end of the visit

Administrative responsibilities

Schedule and confirm appointments; manage the recall and no-show list
Verify insurance eligibility and collect copays
Route messages, refill requests and results to the correct provider
Prepare referrals and prior authorizations

Requirements

Completion of a medical assistant training program, or equivalent clinical experience
Ability to work within the medical assistant scope of practice in [state]
Comfortable in an electronic health record; [EHR name] experience is a plus, not a requirement
Able to pass a background check and required immunization screening

Preferred

Current CMA (AAMA), RMA, CCMA or equivalent certification
Experience in [specialty]
Phlebotomy experience
Conversational [language]

Schedule and pay

$[XX.XX]–$[XX.XX]/hour; [$X.XX/hour differential or annual stipend] for certified medical assistants
[Mon–Fri], [8-hour] days, [no weekends / one Saturday morning a month]
[Four 10-hour days available]

Benefits

Health, dental and vision from day [1 / 30 / 60]
Paid time off and [6] paid holidays
[401(k) with X% match]
[Certification exam fees and CEUs paid]
[Scrubs provided / uniform allowance]

Requirements: what to keep, what to soften, and what quietly costs you applicants

Medical assistant postings are among the most copy-pasted in healthcare, and the copied lines are usually the ones doing the damage. Here is what each requirement actually does to your applicant flow.

Requirement	What to know
Scope of practice in your state	Keep it, and know it. What a medical assistant may do — injections, medication administration, certain point-of-care tests — is set state by state, and AAMA publishes state scope-of-practice laws for exactly this reason. Write the duty list against your state's rules rather than against a template from another one.
Certification (CMA, RMA, CCMA)	Usually preferred, not required. The BLS states most states do not require certification, though employers may. Making it a hard requirement removes recent graduates and experienced uncertified assistants from a market where openings run to roughly 109,700 a year. If you value it, pay for it — a differential and paid exam fees attract certified candidates without excluding everyone else.
Training program completion	Reasonable. The typical entry route is a postsecondary nondegree award. "Or equivalent clinical experience" keeps career-changers from medic, CNA and veterinary-assistant backgrounds in the pipeline.
Named EHR experience	Soften it. "Epic experience required" screens on a system your new hire will learn in a week. List it as preferred and train it.
Background check and immunizations	Required in most clinical settings. Say it plainly in the posting so nobody is surprised at offer stage.
Résumé upload on the first screen	Remove it. It is the single most expensive field on a mobile application for this role. Ask for name, phone, certification status and availability; get the résumé at the interview.

One line to add that almost nobody does: the clinical-to-administrative split, as a percentage. It is the question every medical assistant asks in the first two minutes of a phone screen, and answering it in the posting removes a whole category of wasted interviews on both sides.

How to customize it for your setting

Primary care

Volume and rhythm are the selling points: a predictable panel, the same providers every day, and no call. Say how many patients a day and how many providers the assistant supports. If your clinic uses standing orders that widen what the assistant does, lead with it — it is real career content.

Specialty clinic

Name the specialty in the title, not just the body. A dermatology or orthopedics medical assistant learns procedures that transfer, and candidates search by specialty. Describe the two or three procedures they will assist with by name.

Urgent care

Shifts are longer, the mix is broader, and the pace is the honest headline. State the shift pattern, whether weekends rotate, and the injury and x-ray exposure if applicable. Candidates who want urgent care want it precisely for that variety.

Hospital outpatient and health system

Your competitive advantages are usually benefits, tuition assistance and an internal ladder to nursing or imaging. Say what the ladder actually is. "Growth opportunities" is not a ladder; "we pay for the LPN bridge and 11 people have used it" is.

What it costs to reach medical assistants on social

We do not publish a medical-assistant-specific cost per applicant — the role does not have its own family in our dataset, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What we can publish is the sector it sits inside. Across 553 healthcare and senior living campaign-months in our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, the median cost per applicant was $15.42, with the middle half of campaigns landing between $7.89 and $39.61, an apply rate of 16% and a CPM of $25.18.

Read that band rather than the midpoint. Healthcare is the widest sector we publish, because it holds both caregiver campaigns under $8.17 and therapy campaigns at $64.12. A medical assistant role sits nearer the lower half: the credential is not a hard gate in most states, the shift is usually daytime and weekday, and the application is short if you let it be. That number is advertising cost only — it buys an applicant, not a hire, and hires are counted in your applicant tracking system, not in an ad platform. The detail by role sits in our healthcare staffing costs breakdown.

If you are hiring medical assistants rather than describing the job, the recruiting side — where clinic staff actually are, what the ad has to say, and what an applicant costs to reach — is on our healthcare recruiting page.

Writing the ad version

The template above is for your ATS and careers page. The advertisement that runs on Facebook or Instagram is much shorter and answers three questions in the first two lines: how much, what hours, where. Something like: "Medical Assistant — $22–$26/hr, Mon–Fri 8–5, no nights, no weekends. [Specialty] clinic, [City]. Certified or not, both welcome. Apply in 60 seconds."

Then two or three knockout questions on the form — training or experience, state, distance — and nothing else. Every added field costs completions, and screening questions are a budget with a price rather than a free filter. The employers in our data who ask only what genuinely disqualifies someone convert at far higher rates than those who front-load document uploads. The mechanics are in our candidate conversion rate guide, and the ad-writing method is in job ad copywriting.

CMA job description: certified medical assistant duties

A CMA job description is the medical assistant job description above with one change: the certification moves from “preferred” to “required,” and the posting should say why. The duties of a certified medical assistant are the same clinical and administrative tasks; what the credential adds is proof of training that your state rules, your payer contracts or your own protocols may rely on when you delegate injections, medication administration or point-of-care testing.

“CMA” in a medical assistant posting normally means the CMA (AAMA) from the American Association of Medical Assistants. To sit for the exam, a candidate must meet one of four eligibility routes, the main one being to “be a student or graduate of a medical assisting program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) or the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools (ABHES).” The others are prior CMA (AAMA) certification, medical assisting educators with at least 1,000 hours of teaching, and an alternative pathway. Holders must recertify every 60 months, by 60 continuing education units or by retaking the exam.

What to write in a certified medical assistant posting

Name the credentials you accept. “CMA (AAMA), RMA (AMT) or CCMA (NHA)” is clearer than “certified MA,” and it keeps candidates with the other two national credentials from assuming they are excluded. If only the CMA (AAMA) will do, say so and say why.
Say what the certification unlocks. If certified assistants give injections, run a standing-order protocol or work in a specialty that uncertified staff do not, list those duties under the certified role. That is the reason a CMA reads your posting instead of the one down the road.
Put a number on it. A per-hour differential or annual stipend for a current certification, and paid recertification CEUs, belong in the pay line.
Offer a route for everyone else. “Not yet certified? We pay for the exam within [X] months of hire” keeps graduates and experienced uncertified assistants in your pool while you get the credential you want.

CMA does not always mean medical assistant

In nursing homes and assisted living, “CMA” usually means a certified medication aide, a CNA with an additional state credential to pass medications. That is a different job with a different registry, and a candidate searching “CMA jobs” could be either one. If you are hiring for long-term care, use the full title in the posting and see the med tech job description, which covers the medication aide role. If you are a clinic, write “Certified Medical Assistant (CMA)” in full at least once.

For interviewing certified candidates, our medical assistant interview questions include clinical scenarios that test the skills the credential is supposed to guarantee.

Frequently asked questions

What are the main duties of a medical assistant?

Clinical duties include interviewing patients, measuring vital signs, assisting with examinations, administering injections and collecting specimens. Administrative duties include scheduling appointments, handling insurance and billing, maintaining supplies and answering phones. The BLS notes that duties vary by state law and by employer, so the split between clinical and front-office work is set locally rather than nationally.

Does a medical assistant need to be certified?

Usually not. The BLS states that although most states do not require it, employers may prefer or require certification. Common credentials include the CMA (AAMA), RMA and CCMA. Because scope of practice is a state matter — AAMA publishes state scope-of-practice laws — check what your state permits an uncertified assistant to do before you write the duty list.

How much do medical assistants make?

The national median was $21.97 an hour, or $45,690 a year, in 2025 according to the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook. Hospital outpatient departments and specialty practices generally pay above the median; small primary-care practices often pay below it. Many employers add a differential or annual stipend for a current certification rather than requiring one.

Is medical assisting a growing field?

Yes. The BLS projects 13% growth from 2025 to 2035, much faster than the average for all occupations, with about 109,700 openings projected each year over the decade against 833,900 people employed in 2025. Practically, that means you are hiring in a market where your posting competes with several others in the same zip code every week.

Other job description templates

See all job description templates — free, editable templates for frontline, trades, healthcare and warehouse roles.

Hiring medical assistants?

The job description is the document; the ad is the thing that gets read. We write it, run it where clinic staff are actually scrolling, and report what each applicant cost — cost per applicant, not cost per hire.

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Pay, employment, outlook and certification statements: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Medical Assistants (last modified August 27, 2026; 2025 wage and employment data), read August 28, 2026. Certification and state scope-of-practice references: American Association of Medical Assistants, read August 28, 2026. Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark — healthcare and senior living sector, 553 campaign-months, advertising costs only. Cost per applicant is not cost per hire. Last updated August 2026.