Medical assistant jobs in District of Columbia

DC places 3 of 51 in medical assistant pay, across the 50 states plus DC. Median means the midpoint: half the workers earn above it and half earn below it. Here that figure is $51,050 a year, compared with $45,690 nationwide.

Earnings within DC also stretch across a wide range.

Roughly 2,260 people hold medical assistant jobs within DC itself. That works out to 3.2 for every 1,000 jobs, placing DC 46 of 51 for total job count. The larger Washington metro region, which covers parts of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia, holds about 13,890 medical assistant jobs. More application options open up there if travel works for you.

The district's labor agency forecasts the field growing from 2,810 positions in 2024 to 3,300 in 2034. That equals growth of 17.8%, beating the national rate of 12.5% and putting DC 16 of 51.

About 410 openings are expected annually. Newly created posts count toward this, along with roles that open when workers leave. DC ranks 44 of 51 for yearly openings, but the wider Washington area gives you many more places to apply.

DC doesn't license or certify medical assistants, so you can start working without any state certificate. Doctors assign the work instead, handing tasks to you while staying responsible for them under their own license. DC law does not spell out which tasks a medical assistant can and cannot perform.

A couple of tasks come with their own separate rules:

• Administering drugs falls under the practice of medicine.
• Taking x-rays is treated as radiography, which requires a license from the District of Columbia Board of Medicine, plus completion of an accredited program and passing the national exam.

DC has one medical assistant school on this site, and it is not CAAHEP or ABHES accredited. Accredited programs are listed on our online programs page, and you can send a request to one of them there. Accreditation means an outside organization has reviewed the program and confirmed it meets set standards. Nationally, 484 programs carry that accreditation.

Program lengths tend to be brief. Among the 378 career schools reporting this information, the median completion time runs 9 months. Most programs take 7 to 9 months, and some wrap up in 6 months or less.

What you pay depends on the school type. Career schools that publish a price for the entire program show a median of $17,257 covering tuition, fees and books. For public colleges, the median cost is $4,346 for a full-time year of in-district study.

DC pays medical assistants some of the best wages in the country, and many programs take about 9 months.

Online programs let you take classes from home, but supervised clinical practice takes place in person. That hands-on portion is the externship: supervised work in an actual clinic or doctor's office. Countrywide, 30 programs can be completed by distance education aside from those clinical hours, and 14 of those hold accreditation.

On our online programs page, choose an accredited program and send it the Request information form. The request goes to that one school.

For many people, medical assisting serves as an entry point into health care. National median pay for comparable roles shows where the position sits.

DC medical assistants bring home more than the national median for their occupation. When you are ready to begin training, choose an accredited program and ask that school for details.