Medical Records Specialists
Compile, process, and maintain medical records of hospital and clinic patients in a manner consistent with medical, administrative, ethical, legal, and regulatory requirements of the healthcare system. Classify medical and healthcare concepts, including diagnosis, procedures, medical services, and equipment, into the healthcare industry's numerical coding system. Includes medical coders.
A wage reference for United States.
Published wage percentiles describe a distribution within the source occupation group. They provide context for a career decision; employer packages and job offers have their own terms.
This wage group may include multiple detailed occupations. The figures are for the source group, which may be broader than Medical Records Specialists. They are not an exact-title, employer, experience or seniority match.
May 2025 · USD · United States. Annual and hourly figures are shown only when the source publishes them; neither is calculated from the other.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational wage data, distributed through the O*NET® OnLine service.
Annual wage thresholds
USD per year
Hourly wage thresholds
USD per hour
| Percentile | Annual wage (USD/year) | Hourly wage (USD/hour) |
|---|---|---|
| 10th | $37,000 | $17.79 |
| 25th | $43,490 | $20.91 |
| 50th · Median | $51,140 | $24.59 |
| 75th | $64,820 | $31.17 |
| 90th | $81,150 | $39.01 |
“≥” means at least the published amount; “≤” means at most that amount. These are bounds, not exact values. “Not published” means the source did not provide that figure. Occupational wages follow the source definition and do not establish an employer’s base salary, equity or total compensation.
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What this career involves.
Occupation definitions describe common work. Responsibilities and requirements vary by employer and specific job.
Selected title examples
Expand more title examples (37)
Typical tasks
- Protect the security of medical records to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.
- Review records for completeness, accuracy, and compliance with regulations.
- Scan patients' health records into electronic formats.
- Release information to persons or agencies according to regulations.
- Enter data, such as demographic characteristics, history and extent of disease, diagnostic procedures, or treatment into computer.
- Maintain or operate a variety of health record indexes or storage and retrieval systems to collect, classify, store, or analyze information.
Expand more tasks (10)
- Process patient admission or discharge documents.
- Retrieve patient medical records for physicians, technicians, or other medical personnel.
- Resolve or clarify codes or diagnoses with conflicting, missing, or unclear information by consulting with doctors or others or by participating in the coding team's regular meetings.
- Compile and maintain patients' medical records to document condition and treatment and to provide data for research or cost control and care improvement efforts.
- Identify, compile, abstract, and code patient data, using standard classification systems.
- Assign the patient to diagnosis-related groups (DRGs), using appropriate computer software.
- Process and prepare business or government forms.
- Consult classification manuals to locate information about disease processes.
- Transcribe medical reports.
- Schedule medical appointments for patients.
Skills used in this work
- Reading Comprehension
- Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
- Critical Thinking
- Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
- Active Listening
- Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Speaking
- Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Time Management
- Managing one's own time and the time of others.
- Writing
- Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
Expand more skills (29)
- Active Learning
- Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Complex Problem Solving
- Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
- Judgment and Decision Making
- Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
- Monitoring
- Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
- Service Orientation
- Actively looking for ways to help people.
- Social Perceptiveness
- Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Coordination
- Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
- Learning Strategies
- Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
- Persuasion
- Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
- Instructing
- Teaching others how to do something.
- Negotiation
- Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
- Systems Analysis
- Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
- Systems Evaluation
- Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
- Management of Financial Resources
- Determining how money will be spent to get the work done, and accounting for these expenditures.
- Management of Material Resources
- Obtaining and seeing to the appropriate use of equipment, facilities, and materials needed to do certain work.
- Management of Personnel Resources
- Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
- Mathematics
- Using mathematics to solve problems.
- Quality Control Analysis
- Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.
- Operations Monitoring
- Watching gauges, dials, or other indicators to make sure a machine is working properly.
- Programming
- Writing computer programs for various purposes.
- Technology Design
- Generating or adapting equipment and technology to serve user needs.
- Troubleshooting
- Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.
- Operations Analysis
- Analyzing needs and product requirements to create a design.
- Equipment Maintenance
- Performing routine maintenance on equipment and determining when and what kind of maintenance is needed.
- Equipment Selection
- Determining the kind of tools and equipment needed to do a job.
- Installation
- Installing equipment, machines, wiring, or programs to meet specifications.
- Operation and Control
- Controlling operations of equipment or systems.
- Repairing
- Repairing machines or systems using the needed tools.
- Science
- Using scientific rules and methods to solve problems.
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