The person who runs the front desk of a clinic. Six months to a year of college, a job in every town, modest pay.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $52,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $39,000 at the lower end to about $67,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 year after high school, on the usual route.
$2,800 to $15,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$52,000
Lower end
$39,000
Upper end
$67,000
Job Bank lists this job as medical administrative assistant. The national median is $25 an hour, about $52,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($18.92) and upper end ($32) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. Hospitals and unionized clinics pay on a grid. Small private clinics set their own rates.
$29 an hour
The median in Alberta, about $60,000 a year
British Columbia is next at $26.50, and Nova Scotia has the lowest median, $23.50. Many first jobs are part time or on a contract covering a leave.
Roughly, all in
$2,800 to $15,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a public college certificate, sometimes only six months long, plus a criminal record check and immunizations. The high end is the same certificate from a private career college, where the price is three to five times higher for a credential employers treat the same way. There is no exam and no licence to buy for this job. If you are looking at a private school, check that its placement promises are real before paying the difference.
One of the cheapest tickets into health care. Vancouver Community College charges $2,563 in tuition for its 6-month certificate.
Hospitals and health authorities
Union grid, pension, extended health and paid sick days.
Private clinics
Often just vacation pay and maybe a small health plan. It varies clinic to clinic.
Daytime hours
Most clinics run weekdays, 8 to 5.
Transferable skills
Every province needs people who know medical terms, records and billing.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Short and cheap. The certificate teaches the words and the software; the job teaches the rest.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Grade 12 English is the main requirement. Some programs test typing speed, for example 25 words a minute at Vancouver Community College.
Medical office certificate
6 to 12 months
6 months to 1 year at a public college. Medical terminology, anatomy basics, scheduling, billing, electronic medical records, and a work placement.
Placement and first job
After the program
Most programs end with a few weeks in a real clinic. Many students are hired by their placement.
Learn the clinic
First year
Every doctor's office runs a little differently. The first year is about the software, the billing codes and the patients.
English
Required. Clear writing and speaking all day.
Keyboarding or business technology
Typing speed is tested at some colleges.
Biology
Makes medical terminology much easier.
Accounting or business
Billing is a big part of the job.
There is no licence and no protected title. Any clinic can hire whoever it wants for the front desk, and some train people on the job. The certificate matters because employers want someone who already knows medical terms, privacy rules and billing software on day one. Skills move freely between provinces, though each province has its own billing system to learn.
In Quebec the training is a vocational diploma in secretarial work, then a short medical add-on, both at public vocational centres.
Secondary V, or set credits from age 16
From age 16
The DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) takes a high school diploma, or you can start at 16 with set Secondary credits in French and English. No math is required.
DEP in Secretarial Studies
About 15 months
Secrétariat (5357) in French or Secretarial Studies (5857) in English. 1,485 hours of office skills, writing and software.
ASP (Attestation of Vocational Specialization) in Medical Secretarial Studies
About 4 months
Secrétariat médical (5374) or Secretarial Studies, Medical (5874). 450 hours on medical terms, appointments, patient files, insurance forms and transcribing reports. You need the secretarial DEP first.
Get hired
Right after
No licence or professional order. Hospitals, clinics, medical offices and labs hire medical secretaries. Inforoute FPT (the Quebec vocational training site) lists average pay at $25 an hour.
Secretarial Studies, DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) 5857
Run by the English Montreal, Lester B. Pearson, Riverside, New Frontiers and Eastern Townships school boards, in Montreal, Montérégie and the Eastern Townships.
Secretarial Studies, Medical, ASP (Attestation of Vocational Specialization) 5874
At the Pearson Adult and Career Centre and the West Island Career Centre in Montreal, and at two private colleges, Cestar in Longueuil and Collège Supérieur de Sherbrooke.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Medical billing specialist
Pay flattens early, and knowing your province's billing codes cold is one way past it.
Office manager
Running a multi-doctor clinic: staff, supplies, schedules. The usual step up.
Health information management diploma
A 2-year program that leads to hospital records jobs.
Unit clerk in a hospital
The ward version of the job, on a union grid with a pension.
Fast, accurate typing
Test yourself online. Aim for 40 words a minute.
A second language
Clinics in diverse cities hire for it.
Customer service experience
Retail or a call centre proves you can stay calm with upset people.
Comfort with software
You will live inside an electronic medical records system.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Unlock the clinic, check the phone messages, print the day's schedule. Then a steady stream: check patients in, answer the phone, book appointments, take payments for forms and notes, scan results into charts, fax referrals and chase the ones that never came back. At the end of the day, submit the doctor's billing to the province. Some days you are also the person calming a scared or angry patient.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counted about 84,300 medical administrative assistants in Canada in 2023, and 35% of them were 50 or older. It rates the outlook good in most provinces.
Vancouver Community College's medical office assistant certificate takes 6 months full time, with tuition of $2,563, and asks for a typing speed of 25 words a minute.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Nursing and patient care first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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