How Much Does a Virtual Medical Administrative Assistant Cost?

The rate is $10.00 to $12.65 per hour, and where a candidate sits in that band depends on experience, education, location, role, specialty, language, schedule, and whether the placement is full or part time. Rates generally begin around $10 an hour and may range up to approximately $12.65.

In the numbers a practice budgets with, full time at 40 hours a week is roughly $1,600 to $2,024 a month, and part time at 20 hours is about half that. Billing follows hours worked, so the monthly figure tracks the schedule rather than sitting fixed like a salary. Because this role is broad, most practices scope the hours against the heaviest queue first and widen from there.

How Does an Administrative Assistant Price Against a Local Hire?

Medical secretaries and administrative assistants earn a median $45,930 a year, or $22.08 an hour (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025). That is the offer-letter number, and it is the smaller part of what the seat costs.

The rest is the employer load. For office and administrative support occupations in private industry, BLS puts total benefits at about 48.6% on top of wages, split across legally required benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment and workers' compensation, then insurance and retirement, then paid leave and supplemental pay (Source: BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2026).

Wage for Medical secretaries and administrative assistants from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Load percentages from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, March 2026, office and administrative support occupations, private industry. Cost per hire from the SHRM 2025 Benchmarking Report. The virtual column uses 2,080 hours, a full 52 weeks at 40 hours, so it is not flattered by assuming unworked weeks. Honest Taskers does not publish a savings percentage; run the comparison on your own salary and hours.

Which Overheads Disappear With a Remote Administrative Assistant?

The employer load disappears, and that's the largest single line.

The roughly 48.6% that sits on top of wages for an in-house office hire, covering payroll taxes, insurance, retirement and paid leave, isn't part of an hourly arrangement, because billing follows hours worked. Three physical costs go with it. There's no workstation, no second phone line and no parking or desk space to fund. Paid leave stops accruing as a liability, and the coverage gap a single sick day opens at a one-person front desk is handled by the arrangement rather than by whoever else is free.

Some costs don't move, and it's worth being plain about which. Your practice management software, your phone system and your EHR licenses stay yours. The time somebody spends supervising and answering questions stays yours too, and a practice that budgets zero management hours will be disappointed in month one. Compliance obligations stay with the practice as well, under a signed Business Associate Agreement.

Which Office Duties Does the Rate Include?

This is the broadest of the front-office roles, which is what makes the hourly comparison favorable: one seat covers scheduling, intake, records, and inbox work that would otherwise be split across two or three partial jobs.

On the calendar, the assistant books new and returning patients into the right provider and visit type, reschedules and cancels under the practice's own timing and policy rules, runs confirmation calls and texts, works recall and follow-up lists so patients due for care get back on the books, and backfills the waitlist when a slot opens.

On the record, the assistant handles new-patient intake forms and demographic entry before the first visit, then keeps charts updated and documents filed so the record stays current. That combination is the reason a practice buying "administrative support" is rarely buying one task. The virtual medical administrative assistant guide covers the role end to end. For the full picture, see medical administrative assistant duties and responsibilities and the benefits of a virtual medical administrative assistant.

When Does an In-House Administrative Assistant Still Make Sense?

Keep the role in house when the work needs a body in the building: greeting arrivals, running the waiting room, handling walk-ins, taking payment at a window, and managing anything paper that physically arrives.

Most practices end up running both. One on-site person owns the lobby and the in-person flow, while a virtual assistant absorbs the phone queue, the confirmations, the intake paperwork, and the filing that keeps pulling the front desk away from the people standing in front of them. That split is augmentation, not replacement, and it is the arrangement that tends to hold.

If you are comparing vendors rather than models, our roundup of the best virtual medical administrative assistant companies compares published rates and terms.

How Do You Trial an Administrative Assistant for Two Weeks?

New clients may receive a two-week working trial with the first selected professional, subject to Honest Taskers' current service terms, and the point of it is to watch real queues rather than to interview again.

Set it up so the result means something. Hand over one defined block of work, such as inbound scheduling calls or the insurance verification queue, instead of a mixture that nobody can measure. Name one person inside the practice who answers questions, because an assistant waiting on an answer looks slow for reasons that aren't theirs. And write down where things stood before the trial started.

Two weeks is long enough to show whether the queue stays clear on an ordinary Tuesday, which is the question that matters. It isn't long enough to judge anything seasonal, so a trial run during your quietest two weeks of the year will flatter the result.