Patient Care Technician Job Description: Template, Duties, Certifications & Pay (2026)
A patient care technician is a nursing assistant who has been trained to do two more things: draw blood and run an EKG. Almost every difference between a good PCT job description and a bad one comes back to whether you spelled out which of those two you actually need — and whether the pay you posted reflects it. Copy the template below, then read the three sections under it before you post.
What a patient care technician does
A PCT does everything a certified nursing assistant does — vitals, bathing, toileting, feeding, repositioning, transfers, intake and output, charting what they observe and escalating it to a nurse — and then adds clinical skills that a CNA licence on its own does not cover.
The National Healthcareer Association, which issues the most widely held PCT credential, describes the scope as basic patient care plus three additions: obtaining EKG readings, performing phlebotomy, and managing patient care supplies and safety checks. That is the whole occupation in one sentence. A PCT is a CNA who can stick a vein and run a twelve-lead.
Where the title is used matters as much as what it covers. Nursing assistants as a group work mostly in skilled nursing — 36% of them, against 32% in hospitals, per BLS. The PCT title runs the other way. It is overwhelmingly a hospital and outpatient title: med-surg and telemetry floors, emergency departments, and dialysis clinics. Nursing homes advertising for the same body usually call it a CNA. If you are a hospital posting “CNA” because that is what your job codes say, you are competing in the wrong listing pool.
PCT, CNA, medical assistant: what each title actually buys you
These three titles overlap enough that employers use them interchangeably and then wonder why the applicants are wrong. They are not interchangeable, and the difference is legible in the pay data.
CNA / nursing assistant — state certification, nurse aide registry, competency exam. Direct personal care and vitals under a nurse’s supervision. Median pay $42,260 (BLS, May 2025). This is the floor.
Patient care technician — in practice a CNA plus phlebotomy, EKG, and often point-of-care testing and specimen handling. There is no state licence called “PCT.” What exists is the CNA credential underneath plus a certification on top, most commonly the NHA CPCT/A. BLS does not break PCT out as its own occupation, so it is counted inside nursing assistants — which is exactly why posting at the nursing-assistant median underpays the role in a hospital market.
Medical assistant — clinic-side rather than bedside: rooming patients, vitals, injections, scheduling, EHR and front-office work. Median pay $45,690, about $3,400 a year above nursing assistants. A medical assistant who applies to your PCT posting is usually applying to leave the front desk, not to work nights on telemetry.
The practical rule: if the tasks you listed include drawing blood or running an EKG, call it a patient care technician and pay above the nursing-assistant median. If they do not, call it a CNA and stop losing the posting to hospitals that pay for skills you are not asking for.
Patient care technician job description template
Copy this whole block and edit the bracketed parts. It is written to be posted as-is on a careers page or a job board, and it is deliberately short — the ad version below is shorter still.
Job title
Patient Care Technician (PCT) — [Unit or department], [Shift]
Summary
[Facility name] is hiring a Patient Care Technician to provide direct patient care on [unit] under the direction of the registered nurse. You will handle activities of daily living, vital signs, specimen collection and EKGs for a typical assignment of [number] patients. This is a [full-time/part-time] position on [shift], [days per week], at our [location] campus.
Responsibilities
- Assist patients with bathing, dressing, toileting, feeding, mobility and transfers
- Measure and record vital signs, weights, and intake and output; report changes to the nurse
- Perform venipuncture and capillary blood collection and label and transport specimens
- Obtain and mount 12-lead EKGs and notify the nurse of abnormal tracings
- Perform point-of-care testing such as blood glucose within your scope
- Reposition and turn bedbound patients on schedule and document skin condition
- Answer call lights and respond to patient and family requests promptly
- Set up, stock and clean patient rooms and equipment; maintain supply par levels
- Document care accurately in [EHR name] during the shift, not at the end of it
- Escalate changes in patient condition to the RN immediately
Requirements
- Active [state] CNA certification in good standing on the nurse aide registry
- Current BLS/CPR certification (American Heart Association)
- High school diploma or GED
- Demonstrated phlebotomy competency, or willingness to complete our training within [number] days of hire
- Able to lift and reposition patients with assistance and stay on your feet for a [length] shift
- Able to work [weekends/holidays/rotating shifts] as scheduled
Nice to have
- NHA Certified Patient Care Technician/Assistant (CPCT/A) or equivalent
- Prior experience on a [telemetry/med-surg/ED/dialysis] unit
- EKG certification
- Experience with [EHR name]
Schedule and conditions
[Shift length] shifts, [rotation]. [Weekend requirement]. [Holiday rotation]. Shift differential of [amount] for nights and [amount] for weekends. The role is physically demanding: standing, walking, lifting and repositioning patients for most of the shift.
Pay and benefits
[$X.XX] to [$Y.YY] per hour depending on experience and certification, plus differentials. [Health, dental and vision from day X]. [Retirement match]. [PTO]. [Tuition assistance and the LPN or RN bridge you support]. [Sign-on bonus and its terms].
How to apply
Apply at [link] — it takes about [number] minutes and you do not need a resume. We reply to every applicant within [number] business days. Questions: [name], [phone or email].
If the job is in a dialysis clinic, you are hiring a different technician
Dialysis is the one setting where “patient care technician” means something specific and legally distinct, and it is the setting where the most PCT job ads run.
A dialysis PCT cannulates fistulas and grafts, sets up and primes the machine, monitors patients through treatment, and manages the water treatment and disinfection side of the clinic. The recognised credential is the Certified Clinical Hemodialysis Technician (CCHT) from the Nephrology Nursing Certification Commission. NNCC requires a high school diploma or GED and completion of a clinical hemodialysis technician training program that included both classroom instruction and supervised clinical experience — so this is a credential candidates typically earn after you hire and train them, not before they apply.
What the pay data says you should post
Because BLS folds patient care technicians into nursing assistants, the industry table is the closest thing to a PCT pay benchmark that exists. Median annual wages for nursing assistants, May 2025:
Government (excluding state and local education and hospitals): $47,050. Skilled nursing facilities: $43,000. Hospitals (state, local and private): $42,310. Continuing care retirement communities and assisted living: $39,490. Home healthcare services: $38,040.
Two things fall out of that table that matter when you write the pay line.
First, the spread from top to bottom is about $9,000 a year — roughly $4.30 an hour. That is the entire negotiating range of the occupation, and it means a $1.00 differential is a meaningful move, not a rounding error. Employers who assume they have to jump $3 an hour to compete usually do not.
Second, hospitals pay $42,310 — below skilled nursing at $43,000 — while asking for the extra phlebotomy and EKG skills that define the PCT title. Hospitals win those candidates anyway on schedule, benefits, and the path to LPN or RN. If you are a hospital, that path is your strongest line and it belongs above the pay range, not buried in the benefits list. If you are a nursing home competing against one, your advantage is that you pay slightly more for slightly less scope, and you should say the number.
How to customise it for your setting
Hospital, med-surg or telemetry. Name the unit and the ratio. “PCT, 32-bed telemetry unit, typical assignment 8–10 patients” tells an experienced tech more about the job than three paragraphs of duties.
Emergency department. Say so in the title. ED techs are a self-selecting group and the ones who want it will not find you under a generic posting.
Dialysis. Lead with paid CCHT training and the schedule — dialysis shifts start early and end early, and no weekends in most clinics is a genuine draw against hospital nights.
Long-term care using the PCT title. Be honest that the phlebotomy and EKG components are occasional. Candidates who took the certification to use it will leave if they do not.
What it costs to reach patient care techs on social
Patient care technicians are recruited out of the same pool as CNAs, and that pool has its own economics. From our 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, across 32 CNA and nursing-assistant campaign-months: median cost per applicant $7.72, middle 50% between $6.18 and $12.06, blended $8.17, apply rate 18%, click-through rate 1.15%.
For context on either side: caregiver and home care campaigns run a $3.76 median with a 31% apply rate, and registered nurse campaigns run $19.08 with an 11% apply rate. The PCT sits in the middle of that range and behaves like the CNA line — which is the useful part. At $7.72 an applicant and an 18% apply rate, a hospital filling six PCT seats is looking at a few hundred dollars of ad spend, not a few thousand, and the constraint is almost never budget. It is how fast someone calls the applicants back.
The apply rate is the number to watch. Eighteen percent means four out of five people who clicked your ad started the form and abandoned it. Every question you add past the fourth is paid for in that number.
Related: CNA job description template · Phlebotomist job description template · Is there really a CNA shortage?
Writing the ad version
The template above is the posting. The ad is not the posting. An ad that runs on Facebook or Instagram gets about two seconds and roughly 40 words before someone decides, and it should carry four things: the title, the pay range, the shift, and the one thing that is unusually good about working for you.
“Patient Care Techs — $19–$23/hr + nights differential. 3x12s, self-scheduling. We pay for your phlebotomy and EKG certification. Apply in 2 minutes, no resume.” That is the whole ad. Everything else lives behind the click.
The pay range belongs in the ad itself, not the landing page. In a role with a $4.30 spread from best-paying industry to worst, a candidate scrolling past cannot tell whether you are at the top or the bottom of it, and will assume the bottom.
What this template will not fix
A job description is a filter, not a funnel. It changes who applies, not how many people see you or what happens after they do. If you are getting the right applicants and still not hiring, the problem is downstream: how long it takes to call them back, how many interviews you make them attend, and whether the offer arrives before a competitor’s does. PCTs are usually working somewhere already, and they stop answering the phone after about 48 hours.
It also will not fix a pay line that is under market. No amount of writing rescues $16.50 an hour in a market where the hospital across town posts $21.
Where patient care techs actually come from
Four pipelines, and they behave differently enough that a single posting reaches maybe one of them.
CNAs already working in long-term care. The largest pool by far, and the one social advertising reaches best, because they are not on job boards — they are employed, not searching, and they see a job ad the way they see everything else: in a feed at 9pm. What moves them is a shift pattern and a pay number, in that order.
Nursing and allied-health students. Pre-nursing students take PCT work deliberately, for the hours at the bedside. They will leave in two years and that is fine — the arithmetic works if you are honest about it in the ad and build the schedule around class times. Say “we schedule around your clinicals” and you will out-recruit hospitals that pay more.
Medical assistants moving to the bedside. They arrive with phlebotomy and vitals already competent and need the CNA credential and the physical side of the job. Worth a distinct posting.
People with no healthcare experience at all. Viable only if you fund and run a training program. If you do, that is the ad — not the job. “Paid CNA training, no experience needed” is a different campaign from “PCT wanted,” and it performs like a different campaign.
Three screening questions that predict the hire
Most PCT interviews test for the wrong thing. The clinical skills are certified or trainable; what varies is tolerance for the parts of the job that are not on the job description.
“Walk me through your last shift — how many patients, and what went wrong?” Someone who has done the job describes an assignment and an escalation. Someone who has not describes duties.
“What is your plan for getting to a 6:45 start in February?” Blunt, and it surfaces the transport and childcare problems that account for most of the first-90-day attrition in this role. Ask it before you hire, not in the exit interview.
“Where do you want to be in three years?” If the answer is nursing school, that is a good answer and you should build the schedule for it. Treating it as a red flag is how hospitals lose the strongest applicants in the pile. More on pre-screening questions.
Frequently asked questions
What is a patient care technician?
A patient care technician provides direct bedside care under a nurse’s supervision — vital signs, activities of daily living, mobility and documentation — and additionally performs clinical tasks such as phlebotomy, EKGs and point-of-care testing. The role is most common in hospitals and dialysis clinics.
What is the difference between a PCT and a CNA?
A PCT is normally a CNA with additional training. Both do direct personal care and vitals; the PCT adds blood draws, EKGs and specimen handling. There is no separate state licence for PCTs — the underlying credential is usually the state CNA certification, with a certification such as the NHA CPCT/A layered on top.
How much does a patient care technician make?
BLS counts patient care technicians within nursing assistants, whose median annual wage was $42,260 in May 2025. By industry the median ranged from $47,050 in government to $38,040 in home healthcare, with hospitals at $42,310 and skilled nursing facilities at $43,000. Employers hiring for the phlebotomy and EKG components typically post above the nursing-assistant median.
What certification does a patient care technician need?
Most employers require an active state CNA certification plus BLS/CPR. The common voluntary credential is the National Healthcareer Association’s Certified Patient Care Technician/Assistant (CPCT/A). In dialysis, the recognised credential is the Certified Clinical Hemodialysis Technician (CCHT) from the Nephrology Nursing Certification Commission, which requires a high school diploma and completion of a training program with classroom and supervised clinical hours.
Should I require certification in the job posting?
Require the state CNA certification and BLS if the role genuinely needs them. Treat CPCT/A and CCHT as preferred rather than required unless you have no capacity to train — requiring them at the application stage restricts your pool to people already doing the job elsewhere.
What should a patient care technician job description include?
The unit and typical patient assignment, the shift and weekend requirement, an explicit pay range, the specific clinical tasks (phlebotomy, EKG, point-of-care testing), the required certifications separated from the preferred ones, the physical demands, and how to apply with a realistic time estimate and a response commitment.
How many patient care technician jobs are there?
Nursing assistants and orderlies, the BLS occupation that contains patient care technicians, numbered 1,558,700 in 2025. Employment is projected to grow 3% through 2035, with about 203,300 openings a year on average — most of them replacing people who leave the occupation rather than new positions.
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Pay, employment and outlook figures: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (Nursing Assistants and Orderlies) and Medical Assistants, May 2025 wage data. Certification scope: National Healthcareer Association (CPCT/A) and Nephrology Nursing Certification Commission (CCHT). Cost-per-applicant figures: Boostpoint 2026 Social Job Advertising Benchmark, 32 CNA and nursing-assistant campaign-months. Last updated September 2026.