How to hire a health support specialist

Health support specialist hiring summary. Here are some key points about hiring health support specialists in the United States:

In the United States, the median cost per hire a health support specialist is $1,633.
It takes between 36 and 42 days to fill the average role in the US.
Human Resources use 15% of their expenses on recruitment on average.
On average, it takes around 12 weeks for a new health support specialist to become settled and show total productivity levels at work.

How to hire a health support specialist, step by step

To hire a health support specialist, consider the skills and experience you are looking for in a candidate, allocate a budget for the position, and post and promote the job opening to reach potential candidates. Follow these steps to hire a health support specialist:

Here's a step-by-step health support specialist hiring guide:

Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
Step 3: Make a budget
Step 4: Write a health support specialist job description
Step 5: Post your job
Step 6: Interview candidates
Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new health support specialist
Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a health support specialist do?

Health Support Specialists are professionals who assist medical professionals in providing health care to improve or restore the mental or physical well-being of their patients. These specialists must create health plans for families while accompanying children with their appointments to receive the necessary health care that is mandated by the federal government. They are required to provide mental health support services by conducting community outreach programs with local vendors and organizations. Health Support Specialists must also conduct counseling sessions for adolescents about substance abuse.

Learn more about the specifics of what a health support specialist does

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Identify your hiring needs

Before you post your health support specialist job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a health support specialist for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

Determine employee vs contractor status

Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

A health support specialist's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, health support specialists from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

This list shows salaries for various types of health support specialists.

Type of Health Support Specialist	Description	Hourly rate
Health Support Specialist	Computer support specialists provide help and advice to people and organizations using computer software or equipment. Some, called computer network support specialists, support information technology (IT) employees within their organization... Show more	$11-20
Support Worker	A support worker is responsible for supporting the community programs and development efforts to sustain and ensure the citizens' stability, providing them resources for their daily needs, and helping them with financial assistance requests. Support workers conduct family counseling to identify their challenges and needs and coordinate with the necessary organizations to process their requests... Show more	$10-28
Support Staff	School support staff provide specialized instructional and student support while utilizing school facilities. They often include diverse staff members whose main role is to ensure that students learn in a supportive and safe learning environment... Show more	$12-19

Create an ideal candidate profile
Common skills:
- Patients
- Social Work
- CPR
- Mental Health
- Substance Abuse
- Persistent Mental Illness
- Crisis Intervention
- Support Services
- Data Entry
- Independent Living
- Intellectual Disabilities
- Rehabilitation
- Autism
- Severe Mental Illness
Check all skills
Responsibilities:
- Prevent and manage aggressive behavior among clients and administer CPR in emergency interventions.
- Word with individuals with autism.
- Train clients on how to improve their ability to carry out ADL's.
- Train in trauma inform practice, first aid CPR, and individual medication case management.
- Consult with referral specialists on finding appropriate and timely community resources for patients.
- Make treatment recommendations and work with interdisciplinary treatment teams to develop and schedule educational and treatment activities for patients.
More health support specialist duties

Make a budget

Including a salary range in the health support specialist job description is a good way to get more applicants. A health support specialist salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

For example, the average salary for a health support specialist in Nebraska may be lower than in California, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level health support specialist. Additionally, a health support specialist with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

Average health support specialist salary

$15.17hourly

$31,552 yearly

Entry-level health support specialist salary

$23,000 yearly salary

Updated December 16, 2025

Average health support specialist salary by state

Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
1	California	$39,792	$19
2	Ohio	$35,604	$17
3	Minnesota	$35,420	$17
4	Oregon	$34,175	$16
5	Massachusetts	$33,831	$16
6	Pennsylvania	$31,678	$15
7	Arizona	$30,796	$15
8	Texas	$30,591	$15
9	Colorado	$30,360	$15
10	Indiana	$30,260	$15
11	Iowa	$29,972	$14
12	Utah	$28,329	$14
13	Florida	$27,437	$13

Average health support specialist salary by company

Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
1	Medtronic	$45,321	$21.79	4
2	UMass Memorial Health	$44,796	$21.54	8
3	Fort Bend County	$41,220	$19.82	2
4	State Of Illinois - Illinois Student Assistance Commission	$38,768	$18.64	9
5	D'Youville College	$38,761	$18.64	1
6	Telecare	$38,335	$18.43	15
7	State Of South Dakota	$37,385	$17.97	59
8	Legacy Health	$37,310	$17.94	2
9	Sharp HealthCare	$36,269	$17.44	2
10	PeaceHealth	$36,169	$17.39	16
11	Milford Regional Medical Center	$34,111	$16.40
12	San Ysidro Health Center	$33,653	$16.18	1
13	Texas Department of Transportation	$33,630	$16.17	4
14	OSF HealthCare	$33,592	$16.15	7
15	Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center	$33,037	$15.88	22
16	One Health	$32,766	$15.75	2
17	The Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County	$32,710	$15.73	4
18	Presbyterian	$32,375	$15.56
19	RHA Health Services	$32,120	$15.44	210
20	Brightside Health	$31,783	$15.28	20

Writing a health support specialist job description
A health support specialist job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a health support specialist job description:
Health support specialist job description example
US-OR-Portland

Type: Part Time - Benefitted
Unity

Overview

We continue our commitment to raise the bar on the quality of behavioral health care provided to those in our community who suffer from mental illness. Finding the best people to join our team is crucial in meeting our goals. If you thrive in a team environment and you want to provide administrative support and customer service in a patient care setting, join us as we build an integrated, qualified team dedicated to behavioral health.

Responsibilities

The behavioral health unit specialist participates with the health care team in delivering quality and customer focused health care to patients. The behavioral health unit specialist provides administrative and clerical services for a behavioral health nursing unit(s). The behavioral health unit specialist escorts and provides visitor management, manages legal status documentation and documents, communicates relevant information to the greater health care team, assists in supporting the unit leadership in scheduling appointments, assists with the patient belongings process, assists with collection and management of quality reporting, and supports day to day unit operations. The behavioral health unit specialist must have critical thinking skills, high attention to detail and integrity.

Qualifications

Education : High school diploma or equivalent.

Experience : Six months of office/clerical experience is required; six months of office/clerical experience in a behavioral health setting is preferred. Experience working with trauma informed care highly preferred.

Skills : Proficient in understanding of medical and behavioral health terminology strongly preferred. Demonstrated ability to perform detailed work accurately. Expert communication skills required. Ability to effectively communicate with licensed independent providers, social workers, and other health care professionals. Excellent teamwork skills required. Must be able to proficiently operate applicable computer systems. Knowledge of legal proceedings as they apply to a behavioral health population.

LEGACY'S VALUES IN ACTION:

Follows guidelines set forth in Legacy's Values in Action.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Vet/Disabled

PI193359038
Post your job
To find health support specialists for your business, try out a few different recruiting strategies:
- Consider internal talent. One of the most important talent pools for any company is its current employees.
- Ask for referrals. Reach out to friends, family members, and your current work to ask if they know any health support specialists they would recommend.
- Recruit at local colleges. Attend job fairs at local colleges to recruit entry-level health support specialists with the right educational background.
- Social media platforms. LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter have more than 3.5 billion users, and they're a great place for company branding and reaching potential job candidates.
Post your job online:
- Post your health support specialist job on Zippia to find and recruit health support specialist candidates who meet your exact specifications.
- Use field-specific websites such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
- Post a job on free websites.
Interview candidates
Recruiting health support specialists requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.
It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match your ideal candidate profile. If you think a candidate is good enough for the next step, you can move on to the technical interview.
While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a health support specialist applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:
- TestDome
- CodeSignal
- Testlify
- BarRaiser
- Coderbyte
The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.
Send a job offer and onboard your new health support specialist
Once you've selected the best health support specialist candidate for the job, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, this letter should include details about the benefits and perks you offer the candidate. Ensuring that your offer is competitive is essential, as qualified candidates may be considering other job opportunities. The candidate may wish to negotiate the terms of the offer, and you should be open to discussion. After you reach an agreement, the final step is formalizing the agreement with a contract.
It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.
After that, you can create an onboarding schedule for a new health support specialist. Human Resources and the hiring manager should complete Employee Action Forms. Human Resources should also ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc., and that new employee files are created.
Go through the hiring process checklist
- Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
- Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
- Define job responsibilities and requirements
- Establish budget and timeline
- Determine hiring decision makers for the role
- Write job description
- Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
- Promote the job internally
- Process applications through applicant tracking system
- Review resumes and cover letters
- Shortlist candidates for screening
- Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
- Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
- Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
- Conduct background checks on top candidates
- Check references of top candidates
- Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
- Extend offer to top candidate(s)
- Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
- Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
- Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
- Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)
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How much does it cost to hire a health support specialist?

Recruiting health support specialists involves both the one-time costs of hiring and the ongoing costs of adding a new employee to your team. Your spending during the hiring process will mostly be on things like promoting the job on job boards, reviewing and interviewing candidates, and onboarding the new hire. Ongoing costs will obviously involve the employee's salary, but also may include things like benefits.

The median annual salary for health support specialists is $31,552 in the US. However, the cost of health support specialist hiring can vary a lot depending on location. Additionally, hiring a health support specialist for contract work or on a per-project basis typically costs between $11 and $20 an hour.

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Hiring health support specialists FAQs

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Updated December 16, 2025

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How to hire a health support specialist