Check out the best-paying health jobs below and find out if health care is the right career path for you. The highest-paying medical jobs are not just setting your bank account, but setting your whole career path.
The list of medical careers that we compiled covers those with high salaries. To help you start down your path toward your new, lucrative career, we have put together a list of 16 popular entry-level medical jobs across the growing healthcare industry. There are hundreds of different jobs in the healthcare field, so we decided to focus on the best-paying entry-level medical jobs that you can land without needing a traditional four-year college degree or prior job experience.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data lists the median annual salary for a health information technology technician at around $44,000, making it one of the best-paying entry-level medical jobs you can get without a multi-year degree. Patient care technicians make about $31,000 on average each year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Medical lab technicians earn about $54,000 per year, according to the BLS, with technicians working in hospitals earning a little more than those working in diagnostic labs.
While the majority of physician assistants are employed by physicians or hospitals, jobs at office-based clinics typically pay slightly more, on average. Yet for every high-paying job held by workers such as nurses and doctors, more than six workers, such as orderlies, phlebotomists, and food prep workers, earn less than $15 per hour.
While doctors and surgeons still make among the highest salaries in the nation, topping the medical institutions salary bill, many other positions require less education, paying salaries of up to $167,000 per year. Many healthcare jobs require at least a handful of years of education and training, including medical school, residency, and fellowships, while others only require a handful of years.
The highest-paying jobs in the health care industry are not all jobs that directly involve working with patients. Here are 12 of the highest paying jobs in the healthcare industry, ranked by the lowest national median wage to highest, and companies or organizations offering those roles. Not only are the jobs listed health care jobs offering median salaries of at least $69,000, but all are expected to see significant growth in the coming seven years, with some seeing growth as much as 37%.
Health-care jobs are expected to grow by 15% — a total of 2.4 million new jobs — between 2019 and 2029, far faster than the average growth rate among all professions, according to data in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticss Labor Outlook Handbook. Employment data actually do show that health care is the fastest-growing industry in America. A recent analysis from the National Employment Law Project estimates the number of jobs, primarily related to hospitals, to be growing by 21% over the decade ending in 2024. The growth means workers in these highly sought-after fields in the healthcare sector can look forward to keeping their high-paying jobs for a longer period and likely can expect to see a nice raise as their skills are sought-after.
With a huge growth in demand for healthcare administrators, physician assistants, genetic counselors, and others, higher and higher salaries are being paid for health administrators. These professionals are responsible for the whole health care facility, handling business matters like coordinating marketing strategies, and making sure that all the staff at the hospital are happy and doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. Physician assistants are a part of multiple areas of health care, such as emergency rooms, surgery rooms, doctors offices, and mental health.
They work closely with both nurses and physicians to provide a comprehensive vision for the patients care. Clinic managers must handle decisions and operations related to finances, patient care, staffing, etc. Nurse-midwives are also trained to assist women with health care at other different stages in their lives, and they are capable of diagnosing and treating health conditions, conducting wellness assessments, and writing prescriptions.
Nurse practitioners are capable of performing many duties performed by physicians, including prescribing medications, ordering medical tests, and diagnosing the patients health conditions. Nurse practitioners act as primary care providers and help incorporate strategies for promoting health into the lives of patients. Nurse practitioners are Advanced Practice Registered Nurses, or APRNs, who provide specialty care to their patients, which includes both primary care and specialty health care.
Registered Nurse Anesthesiologists collaborate with physicians and surgeons from various specialties, playing a role in safely administering the proper amounts of medications for patients to reach a sleep-like state while they are operating. These workers can be called on to review patients health histories, evaluate patients, order and interpret diagnostic tests, diagnose patients injuries or illnesses, deliver treatments, prescribe medications, and advise patients on their health. The degree to which PAs should be overseen by physicians or surgeons differs by state, but in rural and medically underserved communities, PAs often serve as primary providers at clinics in which the doctor is only available one to two days a week.
Physicians may delegate tasks such as conducting comprehensive physicals, providing treatment, counseling patients, or prescribing routine medications to the PA, while attending to more specialized matters. Medical and nursing services managers are employed in nearly all hospital settings, in grouped offices of physicians, and in nursing homes and other medical facilities. People who work in hospitals do a wide variety of jobs, including nurses who tend to patients, laboratory technicians who perform complex tests to find diseases, and radiology technicians who operate the scans that may help diagnose patients.
Biomedical engineer Dental hygienist Radiologic technologist Dietitian or nutritionist Occupational therapy assistant Physical therapy assistant You may also want to take a look at the 10 best-paying health professions, which all require at least a bachelors degree. High-paying Medical Careers That Require Multiple Schools The high-paying careers are all great jobs that you can get with just a bachelors degree or less. You do not have to be a doctor to get a well-paying job in health care.