Health Information Manager

Own the medical record. Who can see it, whether it is correct, how it gets coded and billed, and what happens when a hospital changes systems.

Typical pay: $123,860a year
Time to qualify: 2 to 4 yearsafter high school
Demand: Very high
License needed: Nono license to hold

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Quick answers

How much does a health information manager make in the United States?

The median pay is about $123,860 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $73,390 at the lower end to about $224,340 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.

How long does it take to become a health information manager in the United States?

2 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.

What does it cost to become a health information manager?

$10,000 to $61,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.

Do you need a license to work as a health information manager in the United States?

No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.

What is the job outlook for a health information manager in the United States?

Very high demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.

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Health Information Manager salary in the United States

What you earn and what it costs to get there.

What the wage survey shows

Median

$123,860

Bottom tenth

$73,390

Top tenth

$224,340

The national median is $123,860 a year, the bottom tenth earn $73,390 or less and the top tenth $224,340 or more, in the 2025 survey. Take this one with care. The federal survey has no health information manager line, so the job is counted inside medical and health services managers, a group that also holds hospital chief executives and nursing home administrators. There is no separate figure for health information managers.

Your first job in the department

$51,140 median

Medical records specialists, the survey line for coders and health information technicians, 2025

Health information technicians, coders and release of information specialists sit in this lower-paid survey group, where the bottom tenth earn $37,000 or less and the top tenth $81,150 or more (2025). That is part of why the headline median looks so generous. You get to the manager numbers by running a team, not by running a queue.

The middle half

$94,700 to $166,100

Half of all workers in the 2025 survey earn between these two figures

Two senior roles stand out: privacy and revenue. Someone has to be accountable when patient records leak, and someone has to make sure the coding that bills a hospital's work is defensible.

What it costs to get there

Two-year associate degree in health information technology: Often under $5,000 a year at a community college in-state
Four-year bachelor's degree in health information management, in-state public: Roughly $11,000 to $15,000 a year in tuition and fees
The national exam for the senior credential: $229 for members of the professional association, $299 otherwise
Renewal and continuing education: An annual membership and a set number of education hours every two years

Roughly, all in

$10,000 to $61,000

Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel

The low end is a two year associate degree in health information technology at a community college, often under $5,000 a year in state, plus $229 to $299 for the national credential exam. The high end is a four year bachelor's degree in health information management at an in state public university at $11,000 to $15,000 a year, plus the senior credential exam. Keeping the credential costs an annual membership and a set number of continuing education hours every two years. This field has many accredited online programs, so working in a records department while finishing the degree that promotes you is normal.

File the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). One thing worth knowing: this field has many accredited online degree programs, so you can often work in a records department while you finish the degree that promotes you.

Benefits and the shape of the work

Hospital benefits
Health insurance, retirement match, paid leave. Nonprofit hospitals also open the door to Public Service Loan Forgiveness on federal student loans.
Remote and hybrid work
Unusually common for a health career. Coding and auditing in particular are often done entirely from home.
No nights, no weekends, no patients bleeding on you
It is a health career on an office schedule.
Employer-paid certification
Many hospitals cover exam fees and dues, because credentialed staff matter in audits and accreditation.

How to become a health information manager in the United States

The exact path from high school to qualified.

The path to becoming a health information manager, step by step

The credential is the gate, and only accredited programs let you sit for it.

1
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Biology for the medical vocabulary, English for the writing, and any computer or database course you can get.
2
Accredited degree
2 to 4 years
A two-year associate or a four-year bachelor's degree in health information management. It must be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education, or you cannot sit the national exam.
3
Professional practice experience
During the degree
Built into accredited programs: supervised time inside a real records department, learning the systems.
4
Pass the national exam
Weeks after graduating
The Registered Health Information Administrator exam for bachelor's graduates, or the technician-level exam for associate graduates. The administrator exam is 150 questions in three and a half hours.
5
Move up
5 to 10 years
Technician, then supervisor, then manager or director. Privacy officer and compliance roles branch off the same track.

High school courses that help you become a health information manager

Biology and anatomy
You will not treat patients, but you have to understand what a chart is saying.
Computer science or databases
This is a data job wearing hospital clothes.
English
Policies, audit findings and training material are all writing.
Business or law
Privacy rules, contracts and compliance run through the whole career.

Time and money, at a glance

Years after high school: 2 to 4
Admission: Ordinary grades. Accreditation of the program matters far more than its prestige
Total tuition: $10,000 for a community college associate degree, $45,000 or more for four years in-state
Paid while training?: No, though many students work in records departments while studying online

Not licensed, but the credential is everything

No state licenses this job. What gates it is certification from the American Health Information Management Association, and that association only lets you sit its exam if your degree came from a program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education. That accreditor currently covers about 350 programs across 49 states and roughly 25,500 students. Check the accreditation before you enroll anywhere. A health informatics degree, confusingly, does not qualify you for the administrator exam. It has to be health information management.

What helps you get ahead as a health information manager

Things you don't need, but that help.

Specialties to know

Privacy and security
Becoming the person accountable for patient privacy under federal health privacy law. A named role at every hospital.
Coding audit
Checking that the codes billed match what the record actually documents. Directly tied to a hospital's revenue.
Cancer registry
A separate credential and a separate career, tracking cancer cases and outcomes for state and national registries.
Health data analytics
Moving from managing the record to analyzing what is in it. Learn a query language and a reporting tool.

Nice-to-haves

A hospital job of any kind
Registration desk, transport, unit clerk. Knowing how a hospital actually behaves is worth a semester.
Medical terminology
Often a single cheap community college course, and it makes everything afterwards easier.
Query skills
Being the person who can pull the number nobody else can pull changes how a department sees you.
Calm under audit
A big part of this job is being asked to prove something, in writing, under a deadline.

What being a health information manager is really like

Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.

What a health information manager does day to day

Start with the queues: records waiting to be completed by doctors, requests from patients and lawyers for copies of a chart, coding work sitting unbilled. Then the exceptions. A chart with two patients' notes merged into it. A request for records that you are not allowed to release. A coder and a physician disagreeing about what was documented. Meetings about the next change to the electronic record system, where your job is to say what it will break. Somewhere in there, an audit wants three years of access logs by Friday.

The honest pros and cons of being a health information manager

The good

A health career with office hours and no bodily fluids
Remote and hybrid work is genuinely normal here
Two-year entry point with a clear ladder to management
Hospitals are everywhere, so the skill travels to any town

The hard parts

The published median flatters it: entry jobs pay far less
You enforce rules on doctors who outrank you and are busy
Long stretches of detailed, repetitive checking
When records go wrong, patients are harmed and it lands on your department

Work life

Typical hours: 40 a week, more around audits and system changes
Remote work: Common, and full-time remote in coding and auditing roles
Physical demand: Low
Unionized: Sometimes, in larger public hospital systems

Similar paths

Things nobody tells you about being a health information manager

Things people don't tell you.

Blocking someone's own records is illegal

Federal rules on information blocking mean a hospital or a software vendor can be penalized for getting in the way of patients and providers accessing health data. Health information managers are the people who have to make that work in practice, on systems built long before the rule existed.

Two patients, one chart

Big hospital systems hold duplicate and overlapping records for the same person, and sometimes merge two different people into one file. Finding and untangling those is a standing job in this field, and getting it wrong means someone is treated using another person's history.

200,700 people hold the entry job

The federal survey counted about 200,700 medical records specialists, the coders and technicians who are the first rung of this ladder, in 2025. Federal projections have both that group and the managers above it growing much faster than the average job to 2035.

How a health information manager compares

Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.

More health careers in the US

Diagnostics and lab first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.

Where these numbers come from

Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.